


Tag Along

by Lightsabre3



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Blood and Gore, Death, Family Loss, Friends to Lovers, Healthy Relationships, I hate doing tags, Plot, Poor Life Choices, Sex and Fluff and Stuff, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Relationships, lots of swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2020-12-31 16:09:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 33,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21148484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightsabre3/pseuds/Lightsabre3
Summary: Adelais Miyahara often thinks it ought to have just been Nora who climbed from the dripping innards of Vault 111, but she clawed her way out as well -into the shadow of her dead world.And through violence and gore, betrayal and heartache, she will carve out a place for herself.*If this seems vaguely familiar, I posted a chapter or two of this a while back before taking it down due to the flaws I see in everything I do!*





	1. White Noise

Click-clack. Click-clack. Click-clack.

_Adelais Miyahara’s fingers dance over the terminal keys, line after line of code filling up the screen: numbers, letters, varied symbols, and key words coming together to form commands. Tasks to be executed. Programming to adhere to. Her creation; three months of hard work._

_But it is neither invigorating nor exciting –not like it used to be. No, the work is more mind-numbing than anything –a passion become a chore– and she’s submerged in a deep state of flow having become fuzzy and unreal. She’s been doing this for too long, and now she’s going through the motions. She is the motion. She’s the keyboard. She’s the too-numerous lines of code. She’s the Assualtrons the code was created for –all the other war-machines they’ll slightly skew her code to fit._

_“How’s it going, Miyahara?”_

_The voice sounds from her left, registering in her mind, but is not enough to rip her gaze away from the screen before her. She does, however, slow her typing speed. The lightning-quick script pops up a touch slower. Instead of seeing numbers and letters and symbols, Adelais sees her reflection in the screen: her furrowed brows and the way her lips are turned downwards at the corners._

_An almost imperceptible frown._

How is it going? How am I going- doing? I don’t… I don’t look too hot.

“_Meh,” she answers noncommittally, not liking the look on her face and trying to wipe it off. It’s stuck, though. Plastered there. The longer she looks at herself, the more severe it becomes –the more like chicken scratch the code behind her reflection is._

_Her fingers briefly leave the keyboard, rubbing at her eyes before she goes back to her steady click-clacking. She’s not sure what she’s typing anymore._

_“You hear about Lake Quannapowitt? A contagion in the water or somethin’ –heard there was a fishing competition and a load of people were hospitalized… You’re from down that way, aren’tcha?”_

_“Yeah. Quincy,” Adelais mumbles, heart doing an odd leap in her chest. She can’t recognize her reflection any longer –she doesn’t recognize herself at all. She looks drained and sallow. Dead-eyed. She swallows, though, trying to push through the odd panic fluttering within. “Nuka-World’s power-plant went all screwy-.”_

_“Nah, nah,” the voice dismisses. “They disproved it.”_

_“No, they covered it up. Fired the whistleblower,” Adelais corrects. “They’re not accepting responsibility. No one is anymore…”_

Am I responsible for all the lives the Assualtrons running on my code take? Am I part of the problem?

_Her typing falters for half a moment, and Adelais backspaces more than she needs to, not able to see where she erred. It’s all just hoop-la. Had she been banging away on her keyboard like a mindless chimp? She rubs at her eyes again with one hand as the other scrolls up through line after line, scanning for something she recognizes._

_“A shame, then…” The voice sighs drearily. “The world keeps getting crazier and crazier, doesn’t it?”_

_Adelais nods. “Crazier. Greedier –we’re barreling towards nuclear annihilation.” Her stomach twists at her own words, and her eyes spin. There’s no hope in the code. She doesn’t know where or when or anything anymore. All there is, is the face in the monitor, and it looks so sick and tired. Guilty._

What am I doing?

_Adelais’ fingers slide off the keyboard, falling onto her lap, and she blinks again and again. Numbers, letters, and symbols flash in the darkness behind her lids. When they part, she’s looking up and over at her fellow technician. He’s older than her, balding already, and watching her with a simple smile as he leans against the short partition separating her workspace from his. He doesn’t notice she’s going crazy._

_She looks away, eyes catching on targeting cards, bits of wire, and scraps of metal –all of which litter her desktop, along with an empty package or two of instant noodles and Nuka-Colas. She used to fiddle with the scrap. Tinker at her desk during breaks from code-writing. She can’t remember the last time she built anything –the last time she ever thought she wanted to. She’s been sitting at this terminal, day after day, for the past three months –aiding a war she doesn’t believe in._

_“You ever feel… guilty?” she asks the man whose name she never bothered to learn –or maybe she did know it at one point. It faded away with everything else around her. “Knowing our work goes towards a war no one wants but prepares for? That the machines will be used to hurt people –innocents just as much as true enemies?”_

_His simple, smiling face scrunches up in confusion, and his head tilts ever so slightly, catching the harsh light and shining briefly. “I don’t see it that way,” he says slowly. “We’re ensuring the safety of our people.”_

How fucking safe is it for a robot to have a laser canon in its head? Missiles in their shoulders? Guns in their hands?

…

What am I doing?

_Adelais pushes back from her desk, feeling as if her body is made up of white noise. She’s been numbed for too long, still and complacent. There’s movement again, feeling she’d lost: an unpleasant tingle one gets when their foot falls asleep and they’re made to walk on it. Like stepping on needles, semi-painful, but it needs to happen. She needs to move again._

_The man says something to her, but it doesn’t register. She’s gathering up all her belongings, her awakening sense of self scolding her greatly. Where has she been? Why has she been doing this? She used to have ambition! She used to want to help the world with her skills, and here she is engineering_ war-machines. _And why? Because the amount she was initially offered made her go wide-eyed and weak-kneed?_

_“Oh, fuck me,” she groans, tucking away the last of her items in the messenger bag hanging on the back of her chair. She snaps it closed, then it up, slinging it over her shoulder as she heads down row after row of desks and partition walls. She keeps her eyes ahead, feeling stares and words bounce off her skin. She ignores it all without a word, not stopping until she pushes through the front doors of D.C.’s RobCo. Facility and steps out into the bright sunshine of high-noon._

_The air is muggy and summery, and they feel like the first sensations she’s had in years. Unpleasant as they are, she basks in the humid warmth, then flinches against all the noise: the din of construction and honking horns clashing with the babble of crowds and roar of planes overhead. She holds herself tight against the bodies brushing against hers, the uncaring pedestrians nudging her too roughly or barking at her shortly to, “Move!”_

_Adelais had forgotten what a swampish hell-hole Washington D.C. is._

* * *

Below her, the Commonwealth lay spread out, painted in vibrant oranges as the sun sets. In the low-light, Adelais can barely tell how warped the world is; but when she peers closely, she sees the distorted landscape for what it really is. The buildings are crumbled. The pavement upheaved and horrendously cracked. Foliage crisped –everything’s crisped. Decayed, decaying, but… healing in some way. So slightly one wouldn’t notice unless they were looking for it.

It will never be the same, though –will never match the world existing only in Adelais’ memories.

She’s okay with that. More than okay with it.

When Adelais looks down at the Commonwealth, she sees a new world: something to study and experience. Document. Fix in whatever way she can –the way she wanted to some two-hundred and ten years ago before the bombs dropped and she was cryogenically frozen. Like she wanted to before the “Concord Incident” and Nora –her aunt– became such a panicky mess she wouldn’t let Adelais out of her sight. Before Adelais let her sense of self be twisted and turned, manipulated, until she became docile and afraid. An automaton who only did what Nora said, who was swallowed alive by monotonous, little chores. Fix this. Reprogram that. Brew up some chems.

Adelais leans into the guard-rail encircling the lower-most deck of the armoured airship known as the _Prydwen_, the top portion of her body basically hanging over the side. She wants to scream and curse –part of her wants to tip forward a touch more and go plummeting to her death. She’s so stupid. She’s smart, but she’s stupid. She’s a complacent piece of shit…

Adelais pulls in a deep, deep breath, pulling herself back from the edge ever so slightly –enough so she won’t go tumbling over the railing. Her arms still hang over the edge, and her forehead is pressed to the cool metal. She sighs and opens her eyes.

Below her, Brotherhood of Steel soldiers mill about the pre-war airport they’ve repurposed into their base of operations. They carry their fancy, laser weapons. Strut about in near-impenetrable suits of power armor. Keep their noses held so damn high.

She wants to drop something on their heads, brain a few of the bastards.

_It would do more than just brain them. Get something heavy enough and I could crush their skulls…_

Adelais smiles softly to herself. It might make up for her bullshit: putting a small dent in the army of assholes growing in her backyard –watered and tended to by Nora.

_Nora…_

Adelais’ lips twist into a snarl, but she forces it away, forces away all the angry thoughts –those self-deprecating and those wanting to rip her aunt a new one. She tries to focus on the now. What she can do. She tells herself if she’s patient, careful, she might be able to get rid of the Brotherhood of Steel altogether.

No, she can. She’s awake now –awake again. There’s a spark in her chest where there hadn’t been one before. An old desire awakened. And she knows the desire, recognizes the feeling. She’d had it once before, well over two-hundred years ago when she’d walked out of RobCo. She’d been asleep, far gone in her mind. Dull. Uncaring.

A few words had awoken her, such is the case now. She wants to adventure again. To explore, observe, and learn. To bring down a mighty hammer of justice on the head of Arthur Maxson, the one who’d roused her from complacency.

She wants revenge, too. Revenge on Nora. Her aunt knew exactly what she was doing –what she’s still doing. She made Adelais scared and weak when she used to be dauntless, stubborn, and loud. Alive!

A troublemaker.

Adelais draws herself up to her full height of five feet and six inches, steely-grey eyes going to the landscape warped by atomic fire. Changed, but the same. A distorted shadow of its former self. And then her gaze fastens upon the familiar figure of her aunt where she walks along the catwalk side-by-side with some B.o.S. asshole named Danse. They’re dressed to take on the wasteland: Nora in her thick, leather armor with guns and knives sparkling on her hips and Danse in his hulking suit of power armor and laser rifle.

The freshly-woken girl’s fingers curl harshly around the railing as she watches Nora smile up at Danse –a smile she recognizes very well. A beautiful grin, smooth and sweet. Sincere. She used to smile at Nate like that…

The soldier goes to help her aunt into a waiting vertibird, but Nora’s pale-blue eyes suddenly find Adelais’ steely-grey ones. Her smile transforms. It retains the sweetness, the sincerity, but is a touch more subdued. Not a grin meant for a potential lover but one a mother bestows upon her child. It rubs Adelais the wrong way. The smile had been keeping her in place –as had those eyes. They’d go all watery and fearful whenever Adelais wanted to leave –to explore– then bright and relieved whenever the grey-eyed girl would give in. They are eyes able to sway even the most stubborn, hard-head of people.

Nora pulls away from Danse, briskly jogging over to Adelais –who is quick to collect herself and school her sour expression into a soft smile.

“You’ll be alright for a day or two, won’t you?” her aunt asks softly in concern. “I mean, I know you will. The Brotherhood will look after you –and Elder Maxson will keep you safe as houses.”

Adelais keeps her face from scrunching up in distaste. “I’ll be perfectly fine, don’t worry...” She gnaws at her lip for a moment, watching Nora’s face closely before asking, “Hey, the stuff Maxson said, do you agree with him –on everything?”

Nora Graves inclines her head shortly. “Yeah –well, not on everything. I get a bit annoyed when everyone down there-” and she motions to the wasteland below, “–everyone outside of the Brotherhood– is spoken of as if they’re somehow lesser. It starts to sound like “us” versus “them” when we’re all just trying to survive… Otherwise, I do –I think things would be safer for everyone if the Brotherhood were in charge. That’s why I help them.”

The blonde-haired girl nods thoughtfully, murmuring an, “I noticed that, too…” as she keeps her displeasure and disappointment from her visage.

It was one thing to suspect Nora of being a fascist but having it confirmed twists at her guts. It feels as though she’s lost her last connection to the old world, and Adelais… she can’t believe she’s been helping Nora further her goals when they align with those of Arthur Maxson. It makes her sick.

“That could change, though,” Nora adds, smiling hopefully. “I spoke with the Elder on the matter, and he didn’t seem to realize they way in which he spoke about other wastelanders was derogatory.”

_I’m sure he didn’t._

“Did that bother you?” her aunt asks, voice pitched softer as her eyes pick curiously –carefully– over her face.

“Yeah,” Adelais says, dipping her head slightly. “But if you think it was just due to a lack of self-awareness…” The blonde shrugs. “I’ll get over it. …Anyway, be careful out there. And I’ll get to work here.”

“I will,” Nora promises with a smile. “And don’t just hole yourself up in the workshop. I want you to get out and explore the _Prydwen_ –get to know these people, the Brotherhood.”

Adelais inclines her head noncommittally, smile becoming something blank and unreadable: a doll’s. She tries not to flinch when Nora pulls her in for a hug, tries to make her body respond to it as one who still holds love for their family might. But she feels stiff as stone and ingenuine.

Nora doesn’t seem to notice, though; no, her aunt squeezes her tight, kisses her on the temple, mutters an, “I love you,” and bounds away to the waiting vertibird.

The blonde waves a goodbye as the vertibird’s blades take to spinning but drops her hand to hold tight to the railing when the wind picks up. She squints against the torrent, watching as the docking mechanisms let loose their grip on the flying contraption. It drops a touch as it moves from the_ Prydwen’s_ shadow, the roar of its whirring blades fading out as it disappears into the sunset.

Adelais almost hopes it won’t come back: a thought which rattles her. She’s always loved Nora, has always been so grateful to her, but today, things changed. Her aunt isn’t the woman she always thought she was, and she feels as if a wide berth has opened up between them. Detachment has replaced love, and the more she thinks of how Nora’s been manipulating her –keeping her scared and dull– the more cold detachment becomes festering hatred.

It hurts –feeling this way physically stresses and twists at her heart– but she knows not what to do for it.

Adelais pushes off the railing, heading along the catwalk and into the innards of the _Prydwen_. She ignores everyone, eyes focused ahead of her as she winds her way to the workroom allotted to her.

It’s a small space, sealed with a heavy, steel door Adelais struggles with hauling open, and is equipped with a basic workstation and small cot which passes for a bed on this inflated tub just begging for somehow to blow it up. There’s room to work on the floor, but it won’t be enough. Based on the blueprints Nora brought her, she thinks she’ll need a wide, open space, but for now, she can get things together in the small room.

But Adelais doesn’t want to start on anything. The blonde stands in the doorway to the room for a moment, unhappy and unwilling to do any work –not for Nora. Not anymore.

“Miss Adelais.”

Her shoulders tense at the voice having already become too familiar, too wedged into her mind with a keen hatred.

She glances in the voice’s direction, though, a brow lifted in curiosity to see Arthur Maxson stepping off of a rounded, metal staircase leading higher up into the _Prydwen_.

He has a serious face and a strong, tall build, making him look older than 20 years –but not much. If Adelais didn’t detest him, she would say he is handsome. He has nice, strong facial lines that show even beneath his well-kept beard. Eyes like the bluest skies, with a scar over his left that makes him look badass.

But since Adelais does, in fact, detest him, she doesn’t see much. Just another passable white man with a fuckboy haircut.

She turns to him, lifting her chin slightly in acknowledgement. She doesn’t trust herself to say a word to him; she’s been battling with a want to curse him out and call him every horrible name she can think of since he first opened his mouth. It’s hard not to give in to that want –into old mannerisms– but she’s never been very good at holding her tongue. It got her into all kinds of trouble back before the war, before a deathclaw ripped its way down her spine.

But Adelais has to bite down on her urges, has to keep from snarling. She’s on an air-ship full of her enemies, but she can’t let them know that she is theirs.

“Were you heading to bed already?” he asks, coming to stand a respectful foot or so away.

“I was going to study my blueprints,” she answers simply, hands netted behind her back so she doesn’t use them to flip him off or worse.

Maxson’s serious face comes to hold a soft, almost imperceptible smile. “Ah, so you’re the studious type. Admirable…” He clears his throat, standing straighter somehow. “I came to see if anyone had showed you around the vessel yet, got you acclimated to your surroundings.”

Now that Adelais thinks about it, no one had. When she arrived, Nora spirited her straight away to the flight-deck where the tinkerer was just in time to hear Maxson’s hate-speech from start to finish. And, at first, she thought he couldn’t be serious –that it was a tasteless joke– but she realized just as quickly he was serious about every horrid thing he said –every hateful remark against Ghouls, Synths, and supermutants.

And she realized everyone in the room –including her aunt– felt and thought the same as him with the way they watched him. With awe. With respect. With the way they saluted him and called out, “Ad victoriam!”

Adelais felt sick. Her mind was filled with a roar as she poured over the last few months in her head, wondering how she got to where she is.

When she woke up, Nora was showing her to her quarters, leaving her to settle in. All Adelais did was throw her bag on the bed before somehow finding her way to the catwalk to huff in breaths of air.

So no, she doesn’t know where anything is, and she doesn’t really want to know. She doesn’t want to leave her little cell. But she knows she’ll need a bathroom eventually. Food too.

“It must have slipped Nora’s mind she was so anxious to get on the road,” Adelais says with a small, disingenuous smile. “But I’m sure it won’t be too hard to navigate.”

“I could show you about,” Maxson offers, “I know it might seem strange, an Elder giving a walking-tour, but as you are a guest and a valuable asset here, I want to personally assure you’re comfortable.”

_You’re making me uncomfortable, and my bed is a teeny, metal cot with a thin-ass mattress and blanket._

“And, if you’re not too tired, I would invite you to dinner in my quarters. I’d like to know more of the brilliant mind Nora’s spoken of.”

Adelais goes stiff as a post, her supposedly brilliant brain buffering.

_Is…? Is he hitting on me?_


	2. Heavily Flawed

It is not often Arthur Maxson strolls about the _Prydwen_. Most of the time, he sticks to the bridge and his quarters, not associating too much with those under him. Not because he thinks of them as lesser; no, he simply understands a dividing line must be present. He is the superior officer, the boss. He can be on friendly terms but not too friendly. And he wishes for his crew to laugh and occasionally play around with one another –not have to be on their best behavior and stiff because a higher-up is present.

But he has an interest in one Adelais Miyahara.

The blonde woman walks beside and slightly behind him, hands held behind her back and perceptive, grey eyes scanning her surroundings at all times. She is quiet and her smiles soft, and so he figures her the shy type. The intelligent type.

Knight Graves has spoken highly of her since joining –ever since Arthur asked her if she had any family. He’d learned of her two-hundred years in cryogenic sleep and that those of her family surviving are a missing son and a niece. She said her niece was smart –a technological wunderkind– and before the war, she worked for RobCo. She could –can– make anything: robots, armor, terminals, and chems.

Of course, that piqued Arthur’s interest. He’s always looking for bright minds to strengthen the Brotherhood, and he knew Adelais would have an understanding of pre-war technology no one alive now could ever match. She’d be the find of the century, an asset worth her weight in gold, if he could only get her here and convince her to stay, to join.

Now she’s here, and he has to make her stay permanent. He has to be his most charming, most accommodating self. Everyone must be on their best behavior. Adelais has to see the Brotherhood can give her the world. She could see the world from right here on the bow of the Prydwen.

“Any questions, Miss Adelais?” he asks her once they’ve made their rounds, ending their expedition on the catwalk.

It’s quiet out here –or as quiet as an airship run on jet engines and a fusion powerplant can be. All vertibirds coming and going for the night are either stationed or gone. The soldiers on patrol stand at their posts, diligent and wary. The airport below gears up for sleep, and the wasteland is essentially silent. Arthur doesn’t even hear any sporadic gunfire for once.

The quiet girl looks up from the Commonwealth below. “Only what’s for dinner.”

* * *

They adjourn to Maxson’s private quarters where they sit across from each other at a dining table. Brahmin steak with drizzled with tato sauce and a side of Instamash is served, and Adelais sips at a Nuka-Cola in between bites of her meal. She’s still quiet, but Maxson doesn’t mind. He often spends too much time in the company of those who babble on and on. It’s always something about the problems facing the Brotherhood or the politics of the Elder council. Ah, then there’s the incessant brown-nosing.

So, it is nice to sit with someone who wants nothing from him, who doesn’t see him as a god as a few in his ranks do, and listens –or appears to– when he speaks. Her grey eyes are always upon him, and sometimes it is almost unnerving. She’s an intense girl, but he appreciates that.

“What was your field of study back before the war?” he asks of her.

Adelais dabs at her mouth with a napkin before answering with a smoothness, “Robotics, mostly. Cybernetics. Organic chemistry.”

“What’s your preference?”

She taps the fingers of her right hand on her left, looking thoughtful. “I don’t know really. It’s all fun. I know my strong suit is with my tinkering, but I love chemistry. It’s a lot like baking, you know? Mix a certain amount of this with a certain amount of that, and you get something completely new. It’s fun.”

Arthur smiles softly at the answer, finding it almost endearing.

The grey-eyed girl looks down to her half-eaten steak, picking up her fork and knife to cut into it. “I know where this conversation will go –it reminds me of the one I had with a RobCo. rep when I was in university,” she goes on casually. “You want me to join, to see if my views might align with yours. I can admit we agree on one thing: technology is dangerous. But I don’t condemn it. I believe to treat it with caution, not scorn. It can make lives better, but I realize it can end lives just as easily. I don’t think you lot should go around hoarding it as you do, because I think you’re as irresponsible as any. I believe in autonomy, and that the world will start and end over and over again. Because war never changes –because people never change.”

Arthur’s brows rise, and he’s taken aback for a few moments by her sudden proclamation. By the strength to her voice, the simplicity. She’s not shy. She’s contemplative. She’s right in his want to recruit her, and the way she strings her words together has him… oddly thoughtful. He knows what the Brotherhood’s doctrines says in regards to technology, but he’s been a bit laxer in its regard –in letting other’s outside the Brotherhood handle prewar tech. They sort of share that view.

“We’re all just people,” she murmurs, pausing for a moment to chew and swallow a forkful of steak. “And that is where any similarities we may have end. I’m only here because Nora brought me here. I’ll be leaving as soon as I’m done with the molecular relay.”

“A shame to hear that.” And it is a shame. Now he’ll have to resort to means outside of pleasantry. He’ll have to change her mind. “But you know my goal is to have you stay. So, what is it you want? Caps?”

Adelais Miyahara shakes her head dismissively. “I made the mistake of placing money above my values once, and I won’t do it again.”

She takes her Nuka-Cola into her hand, upending it and setting it aside. She sighs –a tired sound– her grey eyes finding his. They’re lifeless in this moment, far away as if in memory. But then they sharpen, and all there is, is disinterest.

“There are other methods you could use to keep me here,” she says. “You could have Nora try to talk me into it, but don’t worry, she’s made it abundantly clear this is where she wants me. ...You could use violence and threats. You could chain me to a workbench.” She sighs again, reaching for her fork and knife. “But let’s be amiable here, Arthur. Me building this machine is already going to be a big win for the Brotherhood. You’ll get a spy in the Institute. The resulting info will lend itself to another victory. You’ll move on to other places, other conquests. I’m not necessary.”

“But a mind such as yours,” he says, cutting into his steak, “would be useful for any future endeavors. The land between east coast and west is vast, mostly untamed. To bring some semblance of peace to the masses, I need the brightest minds. The strongest of wills.”

The painfully disinterested girl’s demeanor changes in a blink, going from bored and tired, to absolutely furious. It’s in the way she clenches her fork and knife –as if she could dig both into his flesh. How her eyes sharpen with the murderous intent of steel and flame like wildfire. _“Peace?”_

It is a deadly question. A scoff.

“You come here in a big-ass blimp, full of soldiers and weapons –one specifically made for war– and call that peace? Your soldiers go around, swinging their weight and pointing laser pistols at heads, and you call that peace? Your soldiers have gone to homesteads down below and demanded they hand over food as a price for protection! Is that peace to you, Arthur Maxson? You protect your own, but you leave those down below to die. They have died by your hands. And the Synths!”

She sits up straighter, pulling in a deep breath and saying in such a cool, cutting tone, “A Synth has more humanity and compassion than you ever will.”

Arthur Maxson blinks, taken aback. Offended. Mind racing with anger. His hands tighten on his utensils. “They are machines. They-.”

“They have flesh and blood and hopes and dreams. They sleep at night. They get sick. If anything, they are clones with a piece of machinery stuck in their heads to control them!”

He sets his fork and knife down with a bang. “You are a seriously deluded girl. Your head in the clouds, oblivious to what goes on around you. The world ended because of people like you, people who pushed science to the limits.”

“Oh? Because of me?” Adelais gives a humourless laugh. “I’m the villain now because I don’t hold your beliefs? Because I won’t conform to your gospel? What happened to, ‘Oh, Adelais, we could so use you in the Brotherhood! We need your brilliant mind,’?” She shakes her blonde head. “You’re full of shit.”

The Elder’s rage intensifies, reaching heights he’s never known before. “If Nora didn’t-!”

“What? You’d throw me off your little airship? Murder me execution style?” She digs her knife down into the table between them, standing and leaning over their forgotten meals. A challenge writhes in her steel eyes. “_Do it. Fucking kill me, Arthur._ Prove to my ignorant ass aunt what a monster you are-!”

He rises. “You will let me speak!”

“I will not! I never want to hear another word you say –I’ve heard enough utter horseshit out of your mouth today to last me the rest of my miserable fucking life!”

They’re both breathing heavy, mere inches from one another’s faces. Eyes full of scorn, rage.

Arthur Maxson doesn’t believe anyone has made him so angry in his life –nor so quickly. Gotten in his face. Called him a monster and cursed him. No one’s ever dared. They’ve worshipped him –much to his loathing. He was never fought, never looked at as if he was the scum of the earth.

“You are so blind,” she hisses at him, “so full of yourself. So used to having your ass kissed. Why would you ever need to doubt yourself? But you are so wrong. You bastard ass bitch. You raging asshole. You self-satisfied jellyfish fellator.” And she goes on and on, stringing together foul language and insults.

Something within him shifts. His rage remains, but it twists into something terrible. Something shameful. He… he likes the names. How one person on this tub doesn’t think he hung the moon and stars. He is a man –a heavily flawed man– and Adelais Miyahara sees it all. And he likes to see her angry: her steel eyes narrowed into slits and chest heaving as one of her fingers shoots forth to jab him harshly in the chest as she lets him have it.

He grabs the finger, her hand, and pulls her to him. He kisses her with all the hatred and anger he has in him. She snarls and fights and bites his lips. And while one hand holds both of hers, the other grabs a fistful of her hair and pulls.

Her gasp is music, and his voice is husky as he asks her, “What else?”

Adelais’ eyes find his, full of contempt, questions, and disbelief. “Oh, fuck me. You’re into this, aren’t you?”

He tugs her hair again, pulling her over the table to where she’s on his knees before him. Against her elegant, exposed neck, he snarls, “What else?”

The blonde-haired girl shivers and a stream of curses leaves her lips –those directed at herself. A lot of: Of-fucking-course. Miyahara, don’t you dare. Fuck me. You dumb bitch, don’t you do it.

Her steel eyes flick back to him, still so full of hate and anger, but there’s a spark of something else. “I hope all your teeth fall out –except one, and it gives you a toothache for the rest of your life. Leeches should drink you dry. You dog-faced, small-cocked, hypocrite bastard. Star-spangled cunt. Maggot, scum of the earth. Feaster of detritus. Your mother should have thrown you away and kept the stork.”

Arthur briefly wonders how she comes up with things so quickly, but it ultimately doesn’t matter. What matters is the way her throat bobs when she swallows and how her lips are reddened from their kiss. How her chest still heaves.

“And you listen to me, motherfucker,” Adelais goes on, interrupting herself with a hissed expletive when he bites down on her pulse, “I don’t want your lips on mine –anywhere on me.”

“What about here?” He frees her hands, his own snaking between her legs to apply pressure to her sex. Even though she’s wearing a vault suit, she shivers.

“Fuck you –maybe.” She curses at herself again. At him.

Her hands come up to wrap around his neck, and she strangles him –truly strangles him, her grip so tight it becomes hard to breathe. He wonders if she hates him that passionately, with enough fire to kill.

Yet he manages to keep up his administrations, and her grip loosens as it becomes increasingly harder for her to sit still as he moves his hand down below. With her grip removed, he is able to maneuver them better, clear the table and set her down proper while she nips viciously at his flesh.

Arthur’s breath is ragged to his own ears, hitching when her murderous hands fix upon the hardness in his trousers. She teases him through the material, fingers slowly toying with the buckle of his belt. He leans into her, hands fisting by her waists before he nudges her back, away from him.

“Take the suit off,” he orders.

“I’m not one of your soldiers, Maxson,” she snarls, “you can’t order me around. You can ask nicely, and I’ll consider your request.”

He rolls his eyes at her as he pulls in a steadying breath he releases in aggravation. “Would you please take your suit off?”

Adelais makes a show of considering his request, tapping at her chin thoughtfully and humming to herself. She holds a leg out before her, ordering him to, “Untie my boots.”

He narrows his eyes at her.

“Untie my boots, Arthur,” she repeats slowly.

Arthur does so after a silent moment, watching her with contempt but… liking to be bossed around. When her boots drop to the ground, she unzips her vault suit and shimmies out of it slowly.

Arthur watches her closely, wanting to peel the suit off her. She’s going so, aggravatingly slow, and he’s growing ever more impatient. Taught.

She’s a slight girl, breasts large enough for a satisfactory handful and a toned flank and hips. Long, shapely legs and graceful arms and hands. He’s seen pictures of women from the old-world. Movie-stars. Singers. Celebrities. She could have been one of them in another life, but looking closely, he sees faded scars. Callouses.

When the fabric is out of the way, his hands greedily engulf her, squeezing and scraping. Teeth grazing along her pulse, and her fingers slip back down to his belt and free him easily. She teases his length for a moment before he’s slipping her underwear out of the way and his way into her.

It is not love-making. No, he doesn’t care for this girl at all, and he despises himself for loving the feel of her. He hates her for how snuggly she fits around him and how her foul-mouth is an insidious turn on. He hates how her pants and gasps and hisses spur him onwards, and he would hear them more and more. He hates her small hands, warm on his skin. The maddening bite of her nails into his flesh.

And he should rob her of an orgasm. Focus solely on himself and how close he is. Oh, what an earful she’d give him then! He’d be selfish. Short-lived. Pathetic. He can’t do one thing right, can he? He can imagine her saying all that and more.

But he finds the spot which makes her cling to him, makes her insults become curses of pleasure, and he hits it again and again until she’s gone all tight around him. And with her so tight and hot, he follows along with her.

Adelais recovers before he does, pushing him off of her, and he doesn’t complain. No, he falls back into his chair to take in the scene of her straightening her underwear and shimmying into her vault suit and boots. She tosses up her hair quickly into a messy bun and grabs what’s left of the steak on her plate before she walks wordlessly out of the room.

And he’s left there, feeling strange. Disgusted by himself –by her. Yet intrigued. Tired and satisfied, but… it’s not quite right. Nothing about what he just did was right.

But it had felt amazing.


	3. Grievous Offense

Adelais breathes a sigh of satisfaction as she types in the last letter of the code she’s spent the past two days working on. The tedious part of her job is finished, and she can sit back and bask in the accomplishment. Congratulate herself.

Writing code for her programs and robots has always been her least favourite thing to do. She enjoys the building. The tinkering. The trial and error. Not sitting on her ass in front of a screen and typing the day away. But it’s part of the work, so she does it. She tries to be quick about it.

She spins around in her rolling chair, turning to the various crates of wires, metal bits, and tubing she needs to actually build the structure of the molecular relay –she has the terminal controlling it operational, now all she needs is the machine itself. It’ll be a few weeks of work –maybe a month if Nora doesn’t hurry back with the parts she’s missing.

Adelais would get to work right away, but after having spent the blunt majority of the morning in a chair, stiff and staring at a screen, she desperately needs some air. To stretch her legs.

She makes her way down to the catwalk, happy to see the only people there are the soldiers who have to be there. There are no vertibirds or their pilots. No meandering soldiers. It’s the second-most peaceful place outside of her room.

She soaks in the spring air and the warmth of the slowly falling sun for a long while, taking her mind off work by focusing on the land below. She’ll explore it soon; she’ll travel to the places she’s been desperate to see again. And then she’ll go further. West, maybe. She loved it out West. She spent a few months drifting around California, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah after she quit RobCo and only came home because she ran out of money.

Adelais falls into the memory. This is the first time it has come to mind in a while. She was so happy out there, so free, and when she came home it was… well, it was immediate hell. Her parents wouldn’t have her back, they were so disappointed in her. So angry she had quit RobCo. Her father disowned her, and her mother went along with it.

And the bombs dropped without them having fixed anything.

Adelais’ good mood falls to ruin and her eyes pick southwards –towards Quincy.

She decides one of the places she visits should be Quincy, her childhood home. Maybe there would be some peace in going there –it could also make her feel a hell of a lot worse, but… she wants to see it one last time. To see if anything stands.

She dearly hopes so. Even if it’s just a wall.

* * *

_They changed the locks. They won’t answer the door._

_Adelais doesn’t know what she expected to be waiting for her at home. Well, she sort of did. She knew her mother and father would be angry –they were angry when they blew up her phone months ago, wanting words with her after she quit her job. After she failed to re-enroll at C.I.T. She knew they would be mad, and so, she’s been anticipating a good deal of yelling. A Miyahara-family-styled bitch out where her father tells her how disappointing she is –and lists every grievous offense she has ever committed– and her mother stands in the background, nodding her agreement with everything he says._

_She expected that –not a complete shut out._

_The blonde-haired girl tucks her house keys away, a lump in her throat. A knot in her stomach. She’s not ready to give in, though. They can talk this through. If she told them about how she felt at RobCo. –how dull and lost she had become– maybe they would understand. They would understand she couldn’t assist in a war she doesn’t believe in._

_But when had talking to them ever helped before? They thought she was being obstinate, disrespectful._

_Adelais kneels before the front door, pulling back the welcome mat and finding no spare key. Nor in the nearby planters full of herbs her mother uses in her cooking._

_Her head whips around when she hears the front door open, and she watches her father come to stand on the front porch. His face is hard and unforgiving as he holds out a keycard to her._

_The words of relief wither on her lips as she steps forward, replaced by explanations. He did not come outside to welcome her home, to talk things through. He’s here to send her away. _

_“Dad I-.”_

_Hiroki Miyahara drops the card; it falls into the well-kept bushes lining either side of the porch._

_“I did not raise a quitter. I did not raise a runaway.” His words are so final, so severe. “Your mother and I called you every day for weeks, and now you want to talk? You want to come home?”_

_She knows she’s not innocent in this affair either. She ignored their calls. She focused on herself, on trying to feel something again. There were days she wanted to jump off a cliff, and she knew talking to them would have only exacerbated her condition._

_“I know I-.”_

_“That’s right,” her father interrupts. “You do know, Adelais. You knew better than to do this –any of this.”_

_Adelais’ fists clench at her sides, eyes burning with the tears that build. “I just want to come home.”_

_“This isn’t home for you anymore,” Hiroki says, turning on his heel and opening the front door. “Get your shit together, Adelais.”_

_The door closes behind her father; she hears the locks slide home._

_Adelais blinks away her tears, refusing to shed any over him, over her situation. No, she picks her way over to the bushes and fishes out the keycard. There’s a name and number to some storage company on it –as well as the number of a storage unit._

_The blonde tucks it in her pocket and picks up the bags she’d set down on the porch steps._

_At least she knows where she’s sleeping tonight._

* * *

A vertibird coming in to dock has Adelais heading back indoors, and a sense of self-preservation has her sneaking through the command deck so she doesn’t have a run-in with Arthur Maxson.

She’s avoided him like the plague since their… encounter two days ago. She’s deeply ashamed of herself for having done it and bitter over the hate-sex having been pretty freaking great –sloppy and shameful but pretty freaking great. She’s tried not to think about it –him– by working her ass off, but in this quiet moment, as she ducks pass his room, it pops into her mind.

She’s not sure who she hates more anymore: him or herself.

Adelais decides he’s still pretty, damn awful as she hauls open the steel door to her room, and she immediately tries to slam it shut when she finds the man on her mind standing amongst her boxes of scrap and lain-out blueprints.

“Going so soon, Miss Adelais?” he calls after her, voice cool and… amused. Adelais is certain she hears amusement.

“Yeah, I forgot to throw myself off the fucking catwalk.” She closes the door, but Arthur catches and reopens it.

Adelais decides if they’re going to have a confrontation, she’d rather it happens in the privacy of her room. If she decided to strangle the man while walking about the ship, she’d have ten suits of power armor on top of her in an eyeblink. So, she pushes him back, steps into the room, and pulls the door behind her.

“What the fuck do you want?” she growls at him.

“I came by to check your progress,” the Elder says in a matter of fact way. “It doesn’t look like you’ve done much.”

Her eyes narrow. “Excuse you, but I finished with the control terminal and have my parts in order for the build –which I was just about to start on-. No. No. You know what?” She shakes her head. “I don’t even know why I’m explaining myself to you. And I want to tell you to get the fuck out, but I already know you’ll fire back with an, ‘I can go wherever I please on my ship’. So, if you’re going to loiter, do it quietly and out of my line of sight.”

Amusement lingers on his otherwise blank face, and it has Adelais’ blood boiling hot before she shakes her head a final time and gets to work on assembling the tricky innards of the relay.

“I assumed we needed to talk,” Arthur says, leaning into a wall.

“Not shit to talk about,” Adelais grumbles, firing up her power drill so she doesn’t have to listen to his voice. It only helps until she’s run out of parts in need of drilling and connecting, and she doesn’t have many parts in need of it right now. Just motherboards to the metal sheets bracing them, then those onto the inner shell of the relay.

She already knows what he’s wanting to talk about: their sloppy, angry, sexual encounter Adelais still feels dirty from despite numerous pounding showers and intensive scrubbings. She wants to forget it happened. She was hoping Arthur would, too. He’s supposed to be a cool and confident Elder, serious and shit. Not a submissive, little bitch with a kink for physical and verbal abuse. Surely their encounter should have been as shameful for him as it was for her.

But who knows? Maybe he’s in to that.

“I think there might be,” he says once she’s finished drilling. His tone shifts, and she looks up to see if he’s really trying to use a serious, commanding voice on her after she’d called him a self-satisfied jellyfish fellator and he’d liked it. “The way you speak to me in private –look at me and treat me– you will not do so in front of my men.”

“I’ll do what I like,” she says, “but I have no interest going out and about in front of your men, and we won’t have a problem if you stay the fuck away from me.”

“I’ll do what I like,” Arthur echoes back to her. “Which brings us to another discussion point. That being, I like doing you despite you being such a contemptuous, little-.”

“You sure know how to make a girl feel special, don’t you?” Adelais shakes her head at him, eyes going back to her work. “Spare me your proposal or whatever the hell this is, because I won’t do it again. I hate you, and while emotionally and physically wrecking you sounds fun, what we did wasn’t healthy. If I start fucking everyone who pisses me off, well… it’s disgusting to think about.”

“I get to decide what is good for me and what is bad for me,” Arthur casually drawls.

“And I get to decide who I fuck, and I’m not consenting.”

Arthur huffs –actually huffs– and it is the most childish noise she’s ever heard come from him. Pouty and annoyed at how he’s not getting his way.

“Things don’t always go according to plan,” Adelais Miyahara says as she untangles a small bundle of wires. “If you need some ego stroking to stop what I assume to be a very annoying, pitiful hissy fit, you aren’t the worst person I’ve had. I’ll go as far as to put you in the top three. …Now, will you scram? I have work to do.”

“Can’t, unfortunately,” he informs, pushing off the wall. “I’ve made it my mission to enlist you.”

Adelais shakes her head. “Futile, taking on such a hopeless mission.”

“I love it when the odds are stacked against me, Miss Adelais,” he says. “I perform better under duress.”

The blonde-haired girl snorts. “Fuck off.”

“I will, and you’ll be coming with me.” He steps over the bits of machinery, bringing a foot down upon her tangle of wires. She looks up at him with a murderous glare to find him matching it, and how she wants to rip the skin from his face. To give him scars to match the one running over his eye.

“We’re going on a tour today –different from the other one,” he tells her, and there is no room in his tone for argument. It is an order, but she doesn’t take orders from Arthur Maxson –from anyone anymore.

“You can’t make me do shit, Arthur,” she says, voice just shy of a snarl.

“Then you want to be led out of your room in cuffs?”

Now she certainly does snarl. “Try me, bitch.”

Adelais had tiger-parents. Hovering, demanding beasts who she was never entirely sure whether she hated or not. They were proud of her tinkering skills, her knack at robotics and programming, but it wasn’t enough for them –nothing was. Not the piano or violin competition wins. Not the swim, track, and gymnastic medals. Not the straight A’s and her other academic accomplishments.

She’s held on to some bitterness over what they did to her, but in this new world she’s found herself in, she’s thankful they pushed her as they did. She’s not the hardiest, but she’s strong enough. Fast enough. Body toned and dexterous from her years of competitive sports, and muscles kept strong by all the heavy-lifting she does for her robotics work. She’s built muscles up putting together machines, lifting heavy panels and gun barrels, carting contraptions to-and-fro.

Adelais is in a crouch when Arthur Maxson reaches for her, and instincts have her jumping back and smoothly rising to her feet out of his reach. But he’s already moving forward with a pair of cuffs in hand, and her back is to the door. Her hands work on the stupid, stiff, locking mechanism as she stares him down.

“You go about everything in the wrong, damned way,” she tells him, trying to stall. “You don’t ask me, you just do. You try to order me around, and I’m not going to be ordered around. I’m not one of your little soldiers, I’m a fucking person.”

“I tried to treat you like a person, Adelais Miyahara,” he says in a matter of fact way. “I was friendly and accommodating to you, and then you went and opened your mouth.”

She’s very tempted to knee him in the groin, but she does have some sense; a realization she can’t physically assault this man on his own vessel. If they got into a real altercation, it would be loud. She’d be put down, and if they spared her, Nora would come back and learn of what she’s done. She’d be watched like a hawk. There are things she can’t risk right now, not when she so desperately wants to disappear.

“Respect earns respect,” Arthur goes on, drawing her hands from behind her back as he fixes an uncompromising stare on her. The cuffs clamp on tightly. “And you have shown me none, so why should I show you any?”

“And does consent mean nothing to you? The word no?” she fires back. “You’re willing to cuff me and drag me somewhere I don’t want to go, and so I wonder what else you’d do.”

Elder Maxson is clearly taken aback. In fact, he takes a full step away from her as horror and shame washes over his face.

“You make me forget myself,” he says as if it explains everything, excuses his behavior. “I’m never so coarse unless it’s towards my enemies, and even then, I wouldn’t do what you suggested.”

“Do you see what I mean, then? About this not being healthy?” Adelais’ sharp tone goes softer. “Why would you want to fuck someone who brings out the worst in you?”

“Because the sex was good,” Arthur says simply, “and you’re the only one on this ship who doesn’t brown-nose and look at me as if I hung the sun. They’ve exalted me since I was a child.”

“And so not getting your way is enticing.” It is not a question but a statement. Arthur nods his head anyway.

“But I always get my way. I’ve never lost a battle. Some pushback is always fun.”

“You’re…” Adelais shakes her head, looking away from him. “A piece of work. Get these cuffs off me. I’ll go on your stupid tour if it’ll get you out of my hair for a while afterwards.”

She hears a jingle, a click. The cuffs come loose, and she rubs at her wrists while Arthur tucks the cuffs away.

Adelais steps out of his way, allowing him to open up the heavy door. Silently, she follows along behind him.

* * *

Adelais is led to a vertibird, and Arthur motions for her to take a seat in the front along with him. He seats himself in the pilot’s seat, and Adelais knows she shouldn’t be as surprised as she is he can fly one of these things. He puts on a pair of bulky headphones and hands her a matching set. She slips them on and tries to figure out how to mute them so she won’t have to listen to whatever spiel he’s about to give her.

She is grateful for the headphones, though. They block out the thunderous whir of the vertibird blades.

For a long while, they do not speak, and Adelais watches the Commonwealth pass by. She beholds the ruin of skyscrapers, their mottled innards full of supermutants who take potshots at the vertibird. Firefights rage in packed streets. Raiders against common folk and scavengers. Scavengers against the common folk. Wild dogs. Ferals. It’s a chaotic mess.

“The Commonwealth is at war with itself every day,” Maxson says, his voice reaching her despite the clamor. “We are but another faction, another player. This is not a war I started, but one I want to –will– finish.”

Adelais gets it now: the purpose behind this aerial tour. He’s trying to show her his point of view. The wrong he perceives in the world. His argument is almost persuasive as she takes in the debauchery, but they differ at fundamental levels. She’s fully aware the Commonwealth is a mess, but it was improving before they came along. Nora was working towards unification, clearing the roads and better establishing the Minutemen men who protected the paths and people.

And it is still something the brunette works at even though she’s fallen in with the Brotherhood. So, she knows they would be and will be fine without the Brotherhood of Steel hovering over their heads.

She’d go as far to say they only added to the chaos. Before them, they didn’t have tyrants in power armor storming into settlements and demanding tribute. Vertibirds falling from the sky to explode and cause all manners of damage.

“You would set yourself up as a tyrant king of people who want their freedom. Who are just trying to survive,” she says, voice edged with steel. “These people are not thankful to you. They do not want you here, and you only want to be here because it is another conquest. Because of the perceived threat underground.”

“Are you saying the Institute isn’t a threat?”

“Oh, it’s a threat,” Adelais says, “but incredibly misguided. What they need is reformation, not destruction. As I’ve said to you before, I don’t believe technology is inherently evil. The world is in ruin because people are idiots, and they used tools for good to do evil. Fusion technology could have been used to the benefit of all society, but human greed made it a weapon. Humans made this mess. Made the supermutants and ghouls and wasteland weirdness. I see Synthetics as being incredibly useful. The ones existing can become productive members of society, and the old ones of metal bits can be infantry. Household helpers –they don’t think or feel, so I have no problem designating them to such roles.”

“You make is sound so simple,” Arthur murmurs, shaking his head at her. “The Institute doesn’t want to help us, help anyone except themselves. They’d see the upper world in ruins.”

“Which is why I said reformation,” Adelais reminds him. “Honestly, I don’t think they even know what they’re doing. If the right person was in charge, this would all be different.”

“Are your beliefs similar in regards to the Brotherhood?” he queries. His eyes are shaded, but she sees them quickly flicker to her.

“Yeah.” And she reaches for a metal handle to brace herself with as the vertibird slowly lowers to the ground. “If the organization was about protecting the people instead of itself. If xenophobes weren’t in charge. You lot would wipe out sentient beings just because they aren’t pretty to look at… But listen, _all_ wastelanders have some mutation or another. Ghouls and supermutants are extreme cases, and they didn’t become what they are by choice. It was, once again, people being irresponsible assholes, abusing the technology that could have serviced the world.”

The conversation ends as they touch down at what Adelais recognizes as the dilapidated Cambridge Police Department, and Arthur -tight-lipped- beckons for her to climb down. She does so, shucking off her headphones as she drops from the vertibird.

Silently, off to the side, she waits as he’s saluted and congratulated and… praised. Solider after solider salutes him. Congratulates him. Fawns over him. It’s tiresome to witness. She can see how it would grate at his nerves, but she refuses to feel pity towards a man who can have anything he wants with a snap of his fingers.

They make their way from the police station, stepping out onto the streets of Cambridge. Adelais wishes she would have brought a weapon, but those are all the way back at her Red Rocket station just outside of Sanctuary –untouched since the “Concord Incident”. Arthur didn’t see it fit to give her one either –he is, however, armed. Pistols. Knives. The works. She hates him but can’t help think he looks like a badass in his dark ensemble, bomber jacket, and dark shades with weaponry glinting all over his person.

She can see how he survived out here.

The two head south, picking their way around rubble and listening for disturbances. Adelais, though it has been a hot minute since she’s been in the field, remembers to tread carefully. To step lightly and scan her peripherals.

Arthur asks her if she goes into the Commonwealth often.

“This is the first time in a long while,” she admits. “Work for settlements has kept me busy and at home. …The _Prydwen _is the farthest I’ve gone since being dethawed.”

“So, you would say your experience is limited-.”

“If you’re about to tell me to keep close and let you handle anything nasty that comes our way, I fought a deathclaw and won, so you can shut your bitch mouth.”

Arthur’s fists tighten at his sides, and his nod is stiff. Instead of saying a word, he hands her a fine knife he slides from one of his boots. It’s long and serrated, bearing the Brotherhood’s insignia –as well as his initials. It’s well-kept, and though she loathes to accept anything from him, she murmurs a short thank you.

It makes her feel better to be armed, even if it’s just a knife.

“We’ve been working on clearing the Cambridge area,” the man beside her goes on after a moment, “but there are stragglers in the area. Ferals. Supermutants. They come through in waves.”

“I’m guessing you want me to see –up close and personal– what it is we’re up against. See if you can’t sway me.”

He nods. “That’s part of it, but I also needed off the ship. Two birds with one stone.”

“I appreciate the chance to stretch my legs and all, but you’ll find I’m not easily persuaded.”

“I’m aware,” he answers curtly.

“And I’ll fight you on everything you say.”

“Once again, I’m aware.”

They pass by the old fraternal post, finding lingering ferals which mill about aimlessly, unaware of their presence as of yet.

“So, you’re telling me these are people?” Arthur asks of her, gesturing to the oblivious creatures.

Adelais shakes her head at him. “I never said that. I said Ghouls are people, not ferals are people –they used to be, but their brains have rotted out. Now they’re a danger to society, and I’m perfectly fine with putting them down.”

“Aren’t Ghouls just ferals in waiting?” he poses. “A danger to society when they turn? And it can happen at any moment.”

Adelais’ fists clench at her sides, insides curdling with the wrongness of what he says. Yes, she’s fully aware they turn, and when they turn, they’re no one’s friends anymore. But that doesn’t mean they should be treated as menaces.

“And until that moment,” she says simply, “they deserve to be treated as human beings _because they’re human-fucking-beings. _Fuck, Arthur, do you despise anyone who doesn’t look like you?”

“This isn’t just about looks, Adelais-.”

“But it’s part of it, yeah?”

Arthur’s jaw tenses, and in an eyeblink, he’s unholstered a pistol. He doesn’t even have to look to gun down one of the ferals. The pop is muffled; the feral’s drop to the ground is a solid thud.

Those around it whip in their direction, already springing into action.

Adelais shoots Arthur a glare, falling into a practiced stance with her borrowed knife at the ready.

The first one that flings itself at her, she grabs hold of by its ruined garbs, spinning them around and using her momentum to drive it to the ground. With a heavy hand, she brings her knife down into its skull, and with a quick jerk, she frees it. The feral goes utterly limp.

The second hits her while she’s down, and she rolls along with it, face guarded with her arms held out before her in an x. It tries to take its teeth to her arm, but her jumpsuit is thick enough to guard her flesh. And her legs are quick and strong enough to kick at it when they finally roll to a stop. It goes to its back; Adelais pops up, springing forth to bring her knife down upon it again.

Outside herself, she hears the suppressed pops of Arthur’s pistol, and looking his way, she finds three fallen ghouls around him –as well as a fourth and fifth barreling his way. She takes towards them, taking down one while he claims the other.

And that is that. She pulls herself up to her feet, dusts her hands off, and slides the knife into her boot as she eyes Maxson.

“You can’t let me finish a thought, can you?” he says to her, holstering his pistol.

“Because your words are poison.”

He huffs, the sound disgusted. “You admit they are potential danger, though –Ghouls?”

“The same way everyone else around you is,” she states. “A Ghoul has never… let’s say, handcuffed me unwillingly and threatened me with violence.”

“I didn’t threaten you, Adelais –not with violence.”

“It was implied, thank you very much.”

“The few days I was away from you, I forgot how frustrating you are,” he says, spitting on the ground. “The bad left, and the good remained. You’re a girl who refuses to listen to reason, to open herself up to different ways of thinking. Violent when her logic is threatened.”

“Oh my fucking god, Arthur,” she gives a humourless laugh. “Do you hear yourself? What a fucking hypocrite! Hey, man, I realize I’m one –at least I can admit to it. I know when I’m wrong, and I’m not afraid to admit to it. But the things you say and do are so fucking cruel. They impede upon personal freedoms, and people just want to be free! They don’t want you deciding shit for them, and you have no right to!”

They’d gotten into one another’s faces again without Adelais realizing it –not until Arthur Maxson clamps a hand over her mouth. He tells her she talks too much.

“And you’re fucking deaf.” Her voice is muffled behind his hand, so she’s not sure he actually understands her.

He pulls the hand away; she huffs in a breath as her chest heaves with her anger and frustration. He’s too close to her; she’s too heated. He’s similarly huffy, and though she can’t read the eyes behind his dark shades, she knows exactly what they hold.

And fuck, she knows what her own eyes hold because she knows what she’s feeling. An angry lust. And she despises the man for invoking such a sensation within her.

“Can you not be wrong, Arthur?” she asks of him, taking a step back only for his arms to snake out and draw her in. She thumps against his chest, feeling the hardness of his body. The pressure his hands exert on her hips.

She should pull away; she should fight him.

“I can, but I don’t believe I am about this.”

Adelais looses a giant sigh, knowing she’s never going to break through the thick shell of his beliefs. And after a silent moment of thought, she decides if she can’t dominate him with words, she will in another way. She will break him. She will bend him to her will. She will make him hear her.

“Idiot man,” she tuts at him.

“Is that the best you can do?” he purrs –actually purrs, his thumbs pressing in at her sides. “What happened to all those creatively strung together expletives of yours?”

“Weak-willed fuck. Self-deprecating bitch. You enjoy this?” She shakes her head in disgust. “I’m honestly not surprised. It’s a common occurrence for men in positions of power to need a little abuse now and then. A challenge. Abrasion.” She twists out of his grip. “But I am not so easy, and I have rules.”

“List them,” he bids of her.

“You ask for permission before touching me, and you wait for a goddamn yes.”

He nods.

“Do not kiss me, but I won’t mind your mouth elsewhere –and if you mark me, do so in an inconspicuous place.”

“I have a similar rule,” he tells her.

“Noted and moving on. I’m medicated, so I don’t care if you finish inside. Which means there is no excuse for there to be cum anywhere else on my body.”

He tilts his head in acknowledgement before asking, “Do you spit or swallow?”

“Depends on how you taste,” she informs. “And I never said I would suck your dick –speaking of which, never force my head down towards your privates. If I want to take the plunge, I’ll do it of my own volition and on my own time.”

His hard lips almost twitch into a smile. “Then I reserve the same right.”

“Fair is fair,” she agrees with ease. “And don’t come looking for me every day. I’m a busy woman, and I don’t have time for your bullshit. And when Nora gets back… I don’t want her to hear a word of this.” She gestures between them. “Of how big of a bitch I’m being. I don’t want her getting even a hint we might be fooling around –and that’s all this is. Because I loathe you, miserable worm, but I don’t hate a good dicking every now and again.”

“Noted,” he echoes her earlier sentiment, hands curling and uncurling at his side. “Anything else?”

“I’m not fucking you out in the open, so you best set on finding a secure area.”

He points to the old fraternal post. “Cleared out not even a month ago.”

“Then come on,” and she beckons for him to follow, speaking to him as if he’s a dog.

Arthur Maxson doesn’t complain


	4. Old Memories

The molecular relay might be the single-most impressive structure Adelais has ever built; so large, it wouldn't fit anywhere on the air-ship. She had to move her workshop to the airport beneath where she commandeered an empty space and got to work.

And worked.

And worked.

It took her over a month. A lot of exasperated finger-running through her hair. Lip-gnawing. Frustrated cursing. Several angry sessions with Arthur... It took a lot out of her, but now the fruits of her labour towers over her, daunting and grand.

Three, large struts attached to the wide reactor platform support the beam emitter overhead, cables connecting it to the command console she set up in a lean-to shed to protect the monitor from the light rains having peppered the Commonwealth over the last few weeks. Cables run from the console to the relay dish, poised to the sky. And all of it is linked to the power-grid supplying the airport with electricity.

Adelais busies herself at the command console, typing away orders and searching for the Institute's damned frequency. It takes a moment, but the relay dish locks on and adjusts itself accordingly. The beam emitter whirs to life, filling the air with the hum and crackle of electricity. The hairs on her arms stand on end, nerves tingling.

“We can only use it once,” she says to Nora, who stands nearby, leaning in the doorway of the shed. “They’ll change everything up once they know they’ve been compromised.”

Nora, eyes focused on the visible power building in the air around the beam emitter –its sparks with blue-white electricity– makes a distracted, “Mhm,” sound.

“Nora.”

Her aunt shakes her brown-haired head, finally looking to her. Her pale-blue eyes are wide, something like apprehension writhing in their depths.

Adelais repeats herself, knowing Nora didn’t catch a word of what she said.

The brunette accepts the information with a nod, breathing in deeply once or twice. She seems calmer, eyes only occasionally flickering to the relay behind them. “We only need it to work once. …You hold down the fort here for me, okay? And if for some reason I don’t make it back… I…” Nora closes her eyes. Her mouth. She takes in more deep, deep breaths before leveling a serious gaze upon her. “You know I think the Brotherhood is the best place for you.”

“I’m aware,” Adelais murmurs, eyes straying to Arthur Maxson and Paladin Danse. The two men stand across from them, on the other side of the relay. They stand in awe of her work, and it has such a satisfactory feeling brewing within her.

But it is shadowed by a want for a feral to come barreling out of nowhere to wreck them both.

Nora’s expression shifts, becoming tired –the face of a worried mother who just wants her child safe. Adelais doesn’t let herself be fooled by it. “But you don’t want to.”

“I don’t know what I want,” Adelais says in earnest. _I know for sure I don’t want to be here… _“But I’ve been giving this a chance, Nora. I mean… you know how I am. Remember before the war? C.I.T.? RobCo.? The months I spent drifting around the West? I didn’t know where I wanted to be or what I wanted to do.”

_All I know is a I don’t want it to include you._

“You were such a troublemaker…” Nora’s tone is wistful, as is the glint in her pale-blue eyes. She shakes her head as if to dismiss old memories. Thoughts. “But you’ve grown from that. You’ve grown into someone who can do all manners of good. You’ve been doing so much good –for the settlements. For me.”

Adelais averts her gaze, feeling nothing other than regret over the past few months of her life. She hopes Nora just takes it as her being bashful.

The brunette takes her hand. “You could do so much more with the Brotherhood’s technology –their reach and resources. You could rebuild the world, Ade. _We_ could.”

Her words are utter bullshit in Adelais' ears. She can’t believe a word Nora says anymore. She knows too much. Everything’s changed in such a short amount of time, and she just wants to scream. She… a darker part of Adelais wants to hurt Nora. There’s so much bitterness now. She was wronged. She was manipulated. Her smarts used to further the agenda of those she considers evil.

She can’t forgive herself. She can’t forgive Nora.

She just wants her aunt to step on the damn transmitter and never come back.

“Maybe,” Adelais consents, struggling to keep her composure. “But I can’t think about it now. I just want to make sure you get to the Institute safely, find Shaun, and get back to us in once piece. Once this has settled, I’ll be able to think more clearly. I won’t be half as busy.”

Nora smiles brightly, clearly pleased by the answer. “We’ll talk more about it when I get back, then.”

Adelais gives her a thumbs-up.

Her aunt squeezes the hand she still holds. “Thank you, Ade.”

The blonde manages a smile. “You’re welcome.”

With a parting, “I love you,” Nora makes to the molecular relay, only stopping to say goodbye to Danse. Their body language reads they’d really like to hug, touch one another in some way, but they exchange only an, “Ad victoriam.” Whatever Arthur says, Adelais doesn’t catch.

Nora steps onto the platform, and after a final wave, Adelais presses the enter key.

There is a zap; a mighty, blinding flash. Tremors travel through the earth and up Adelais’ spine as she shields her eyes against the glow. But when the light clears, Nora Graves is gone, and the relay blinks out altogether. Dead and smoking.

Adelais sits back in her chair, watching the grey-black smoke rise from the machine she spent weeks of her life constructing. Ultimately, she knew it wouldn't last –it was a one-time thing– but she can't help but feel as if she wasted her time. Her life. It's simply a bitter disappointment. ...But watching worry crease Danse’s usually expressionless face cheers her up a bit, has a small smile quirking her lips. Yet it immediately drops when she finds Arthur Maxson's serious gaze upon her.

She wishes the machine would blow up in all their goddamn faces.

* * *

_Codsworth’s been doing the best he can with what they found growing and what was left around Sanctuary. Mostly soups made with the tomatoes, gourds, carrots, and basic spices that had grown wildly, mixed with the noodles from sealed, pre-war, cups of noodles they’d found in other houses._

_It’s not the worst meal she’s ever had –has a bit of a stale taste due to the extremely old noodles– but Adelais has been eating it with no complaints. She actually prefers it to the cans of Cram and Instamash still laying around after all these years –she doesn’t want to touch any of that shit. She’ll admit, though, to being halfway tempted to try a Fancy Lad snack cake._

_She slurps up a bowl of the soup Codsworth so lovingly made as she gathers up supplies and separates them into two backpacks the bot had found. There are the canteens she discovered at the back of the house’s supply closet –leftover supplies from the days when she, Nate, and Nora would go camping– and she’s filled two of them with water and jury-rigged them with a hook to fasten onto the belts of their vault suits. What food she packs is some sort of odd bread Codsworth managed to make with an extremely tough variant of what used to be wheat and… and what just might be jerky made of the mole rats she had killed earlier in the week. When Codsworth had tried to tell her, she stopped him. She didn’t want to know._

_But she brings enough to last them a few days._

_Adelais also packs a blanket in each sack –scavenged from other houses– so they have something for a little comfort and warmth if they have to sleep outside. They are moth-eaten and tattered, but they’ll do. She loads their .10 mm pistols and divvies up the ammo she had found. As well as the Stimpaks. And that’s about all she knows to bring –other than the small bag of tools she’s collected and her security baton._

_“You’re taking to this lifestyle rather well,” comes Nora from behind. Adelais isn’t sure when her aunt had returned, but with the way the sun is lowering into clouds of oranges and pinks and slight purples, it is far too late to set out on their venture._

_“Don’t have much of a choice, but… I’m kind of digging it honestly,” Adelais says with a shrug as she finishes with the packing up._

_She turns around to see Nora leaning against the kitchen counter like she used to, eyes studying her in their perceptive way. She holds a chipped bowl full of Codsworth’s creation in hand and takes large bites. Adelais imagines her aunt would be starving with how little she’s eaten since they’ve been on the surface. She's been too depressed to properly feed herself –Adelais has had to force her to eat a time or two._

_“I have a lot of catching up to do,” Nora goes on around a bite of soup. “I mean, look at you go. You’ve been restoring, rebuilding the house –the whole neighborhood. You dug a garden in the backyard… You’ve killed… things…” The woman gives a sigh that sounds of mixed feelings: sadness or relief or maybe a bit of happiness –perhaps all three. “Before the bombs fell, I was so worried about you. You’d left college, then RobCo. Disappeared into the desert for months. You stopped doing your tech business and tinkering. Stopped trying to do anything. All you did was sit in the backyard all day staring at leaves and clouds. You looked so lost and unsure of what to do with yourself. Now you’re building and moving around again. You seem like you have a purpose and are back on your feet. And what was I doing?”_

_Mourning. Adjusting. Adelais doesn't blame her for checking out of reality like she did. If she were a different kind of person, she would have too. But when Adelais is confronted with change, with a new problem, her mind goes to whirring. She has to act. She can't sit still._

_But she did have herself a good, old-fashioned cry on a rusted to hell swing set just the other day._

_Nora shakes her head at herself. “What I’m trying to say is, I don’t know if I could be doing any of this without you. I'm... I’m grateful you’re here with me.”_

_“Don’t mention it,” Adelais says, waving such sweet words away. “I’m just trying to be here for you like you were for me before. You let me camp out on you couch and didn’t furiously hound me about getting my shit together.”_

_“I knew you would in time,” Nora murmurs, taking a seat beside Adelais on the floor. “And I’m thankful you were around to tend to all this –and me– while I got myself back together.”_

_Adelais waves that away as well but smiles, pleased at the kind words. “Yes, yes. We’re both kind and wonderful, and we’ll continue to be kind and wonderful.”_

_“And I’ll have your back from here on out,” Nora promises, catching Adelais’ dismissive hand and squeezing it. “Always.”_

_“Always.” Adelais echoes, squeezing her hand right back as her chest flushes with warmth. Happy that their together, that she hadn’t lost her only tolerable family member to the bombs._

_She thinks with Nora by her side, she can survive anything._

* * *

Adelais can’t help but think of her past self as incredibly foolish. Blind. Surely there were signs before the war pointing towards what kind of person Nora is. Maybe Adelais missed them, overlooked them as she had in the more recent past.

There is nothing she can think of. Nora has always been passionate and kind. Caring. She never hated anyone unless they gave her just cause, and she was just as against the war as Adelais and Nate had been. The tinkerer respected her kick-ass, lawyer aunt. She loved her.

But then the world changed.

Adelais realizes Nora had too at some point. She just missed it.

The blonde lies on her miserable, little cot, staring up at the bolts in the ceiling with a deep, thoughtful frown.

She doesn’t think she changed so drastically. No, she’s always given to losing touch with the world, with herself. She has the anger that sometimes overtook her. The mischievous streak she kept carefully concealed until she was ready to act. She has her values. The truth that everyone is the same. Everyone deserves safety and freedom.

The only difference between this self and the old one is that she occasionally murders things now.

Adelais only thinks of any of this, because she’s thinking of what to do with herself –if she should do anything.

Should she try to talk to Nora? See what went wrong and if they can’t fix it?

Part of her is tempted, but it is miniscule compared to the part of her consumed by betrayal.

Nora let her spiral down again. Nora didn’t have her back.

Adelais closes her eyes, loosing a heavy sigh. She wants to leave and never see any of those around her ever again.

She’s been planning for her departure as she built the molecular relay, working on armor and a gas mask with a built-in voice-modulator. Collecting ammunition and information. She stole a canteen and a few other miscellaneous supplies. She’s been preparing, now she just has to plan correctly.

She knows Nora will hunt her down if she were to just leave, so Adelais has been contemplating faking her death. She’s run through a dozen scenarios in her head, but none of them promise success. No, they depend too much on assumptions Adelais can only hope Nora would make, and Nora’s a smart woman. She’d figure it out if Adelais “jumped” off the _Prydwen_ and the splat of her landing was feral ghoul meat or something along those lines.

It can’t be sloppy; it can’t be rushed.

It has to be perfect.

If Nora doesn’t come home, however… Well, it’ll be one less thing to worry about. Adelais is certain she can get away from the Brotherhood. It might be tricky, but she could do it. She’s allowed to wander the ship and airport below, but Maxson _always _has eyes on her. He knows she wants to bolt.

She knows if she were to leave, he would have the whole Brotherhood after her.

Adelais sighs. Death might be her only option.

She stiffens up when the cumbersome door to her room opens, no knock or call to announce whoever comes barging in –and it is Arthur Maxson, so casual as he saunters into the room.

“I’m in no mood for you, Maxson,” Adelais tells him, eyeing the man in aggravation.

He sits down on the desk close to her shitty cot, blatantly ignoring her menacing stare and her wishes. “That’s nothing new.”

“No, it’s not,” she agrees easily, turning on her side –away from him. “But today really isn’t the day you want to pester me.”

“Worried about Nora?”

Adelais doesn’t say a word. She’s not in the mood to lie.

“I’d give it a day before we should start worrying,” Maxson says, as if trying to comfort her. “She only left this morning.”

The blonde rolls her eyes. She doesn’t want Arthur Maxson trying to comfort her –she doesn’t need any comfort. Least of all from him. …But let him believe she’s so twisted up with worry she can’t bear to speak. Let him think she actually gives a damn. It only helps her cause.

“With your work done, I bet you’re wanting to return to Sanctuary,” he says after a silent moment, and Adelais immediately know he’s trying to steer the conversation to enlistment.

Just as Nora refuses to let it go, so does the Elder.

Adelais shrugs.

“I could give you the world, Adelais,” he tells her. It sounds like a promise. “Everything you could ever want or need, the Brotherhood can provide –I can provide.”

The blonde’s eyes blow wide open, heart coming to a full-stop in her chest at the tone of voice Arthur Maxson uses.

It is not cold or snarling. Nor emotionless or bored. Not angry –it is nothing that she is used to from him. The voice nearly sounds of kindness. Assurance.

It sets the tinkerer on edge, has her worrying about things she hadn’t considered before. Issues that could arise.

Adelais huffs, flipping onto her other side to glare at him as she pulls herself upright. “I’m going for a walk. I don’t want company.”

Arthur eyes her tiredly, telling her to take a knife. Apparently, a pack of ferals hobbled through earlier, and though he’s certain his officers got them all, it’s always best to be wary.

The tinkerer takes the knife he loaned to her and she never bothered to return from under her pillow, hurriedly leaving her room and making to the lift that will take her down below.

* * *

It is mid-afternoon and muggy, every surface glimmering with precipitation left over from the sporadic bouts of rain that passed through during the late morning. It doesn’t bother Adelais too badly. No, it is familiar. And if she closes her eyes, it’s like the world around her wasn’t burned to an irradiated crisp. It’s just a normal, late-spring afternoon.

Then she opens her eyes to ruin. Soldiers in power armor milling about, standing guard with heavy gatling lasers at the ready.

She heaves a sigh, walking the perimeter of the airport before settling down in the little lean-to she’d spent the morning in. The molecular relay drips with water, dead and dark when it had been sparking and lively. She still wishes it would explode…

Oh, that gives her an idea. She could fabricate several explosions to go off around the airport and sneak away in the chaos. Somehow make it seem as if she’d been blown to hell –and it would be a great way to reduce the Brotherhood’s numbers.

She tucks this idea away, thinking it’s the best she’s had yet.

There comes a flash of blue-white from Adelais’ periphery, snapping her from thoughts of fire and mayhem. When she looks that way, she sees Nora standing there. She jolts upright, honestly surprised to see her. She thought it might be a day or two –not just a few hours.

“Back so soon?” she calls to her aunt.

Nora spins around, her face an unreadable mask that transforms into a watery, heartbroken smile.

Adelais’ brows knit in confusion, then she gives an “oof” as her aunt rams into her, capturing her in a vise-like hug.

“It-. It was…” Nora shakes her head against Adelais’ shoulder. “My baby’s gone, Ade. I can’t fix it, and now all there is, is you and me, and we have to fix this.”


	5. Heartbreaking Revelation

When Adelais was in her early teens, her mother took her to the local OBGYN out of concern for how irregular her menstrual cycles were. A few, subsequent tests later, she learned she would never have children –or, it would be next to impossible for her to.

She didn’t know how to feel about it at the time. It wasn’t some massive upheaval or heartbreaking revelation. The blonde girl was just a kid who was told she couldn’t have kids, and at the time, she’d never thought about if she wanted them or not. She didn’t really care.

Adelais just said, “Okay,” and went on with her life.

And after a few years, she realized she was perfectly fine with being barren. Adelais likes kids, but she doesn’t want them. She doesn’t want to carry one. She doesn’t want to be torn asunder by one. She doesn’t want to surrender her freedom or pool her resources into a creature that will subsist off her for eighteen or so years.

And ultimately grow up to despise her.

But she remembers the first time she held Shaun in her arms, and how he’d babbled at her. Smiled and giggled. How he listened to her with wide-blown eyes when she talked to him about various theories and weird conspiracies. He ate it up; melted her cold, cold heart.

Because of him, she started to think having a kid might not be so bad –not if they were like Shaun.

And so, it is hard to hear the little tyke she was so fond of doesn’t exist anymore –not in the way she wanted him to. Not in the way Nora needs him to.

Shaun’s an adult –in his twilight years– and he’s the Father of the Institute. And by what Nora’s said, he’s become something she never wanted. The perfect picture of a scientist detached from the world, from his emotions. Cold. Uncaring of the plagues of those of the Commonwealth.

Her head is bowed, face buried in her hands as she shakes and sniffles. Bemoans her fate and what the world has done to her child. Adelais rubs Nora’s shoulders as the woman sobs beside her, not knowing what else to do for the woman whose grief far surpasses her own. All she can think of to do is sit with her, try to comfort her though she has decided she can’t stand her.

She may be over Nora, but the woman has truly lost her son, and that… well, anyone deserves kindness after such a thing.

They sit together for a long while, Adelais watching the sun fall and the moon rise, listening as Nora’s sobs give way to silence, and feeling as she comes to lean on her more and more.

“I don’t know what it’s like,” Adelais says to her aunt, “but I know it’s hard.”

“I… I don’t know what I was expecting…” Nora gives a wet, little hiccup. “I know what I was _hoping_ for, but it was so… so stupid of me to think I’d find my baby boy.” Her aunt sniffs loudly, wiping at her eyes. “I need you more than ever, Ade.”

“I’m here,” she murmurs.

_For now._

Nora sniffs again; Adelais pulls off the tank top she wears with the vault suit she never zips up properly. No, she wears it as pants but ties the sleeves around her waist. She offers the thin shirt to her aunt to use as a tissue, and Nora has no qualms about blowing her nose violently into the material.

“He wants to meet you,” Nora says in a hoarse voice.

Adelais blinks in surprise, fingers briefly stilling as she zips up her suit. “Oh?”

Nora nods, wiping at her nose. “And I told him I’d bring you along if you wanted to meet him. …I want you to go. While I was there, I thought you would be the better spy. You would know how to operate their terminals. Bug the place. Actually transcribe their data. And the knowledge you could bring back… The Brotherhood could benefit so much from it –all of us could.”

_Any where’s better than here…_

“When can we go?” Adelais asks.

“The sooner the better,” Nora sniffs again, blinking her eyes repeatedly. “I was given a bug, but I didn’t know what to do with it –where to put it. There was too much going on, and I looked, but it was overwhelming.”

“I can handle that,” Adelais says, “should I pack a bag?”

Her aunt visibly ponders this for a moment, scratches at her chin and squeezes her eyes shut. Finally, she nods. “Yeah… I don’t want to leave you there for long, but it’s important, so… yeah. I’m going to run it past Elder Maxson first, but I’m sure he’ll agree with me.”

Adelais rolls her eyes so hard she gets a headache.

* * *

Adelais doesn’t believe she’s ever met someone who loves the sound of their own voice as much as Arthur Maxson does.

The Elder stands before her, mouth in constant motion and eyes so serious as he “briefs” her. Speaks to her as if she is an underling, and the only reason Adelais goes along with it is because Nora sits right beside her, watching their interaction closely.

But Adelais isn’t really listening to him. She’s just ready to get this show on the road.

“…tread carefully, Miss Miyahara. We…”

_How many times is he going to say that? How long is he going to keep babbling on and on? _

“…I want you to bring me back everything you can. Get the bug planted. I expect you’ll perform to the best of your abilities…”

_Oh, my fucking God…_

“And be careful,” he adds, extending a hand to her. “I want you back here so we can continue negotiations.”

Adelais doesn’t dare to say a snarky word with Nora watching. Instead, she shakes his hand and manages a smile. “I’ll get it done.”

Nora and her depart, heading back down to the airport. They stop twice: the first time to grab Adelais’ bag and the second time for Nora to say goodbye to Danse. She tells him she has a job to complete at the Institute, so it’ll be a few days until she’s back. He tells her to be careful; she assures she will be.

And as they walk away, Adelais is certain she sees them squeeze one another’s hands.

“You know,” Nora drawls as they board the lift to the ground, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard the Elder tell anyone to be careful –and he looks at you a certain way.”

“I’m aware,” Adelais says in the simplest, most nonplussed of voices as she slams the button which operates the machine. The lift gives a lurch before falling steadily, creakily. “I know when eyes are being made at me.”

“And I’ve heard rumors,” Nora goes on, a mischievous smile and glint to her eyes Adelais ignores. “Walks around Cambridge. Visits to his quarters and him to yours.”

“He’s a persistent ass fellow,” Adelais grouses. “He was trying to show me the Wastes up close, show me the enemies we’re facing. Tell me with people like me working for the Brotherhood the world could be so improved. And even if I told you what the visits were about, you’re just going to assume we were fooling around.”

“Were you?”

Adelais shakes her head in dismissal. “He’d often ask me to dine with him. I’d say yes because the food he gets is better than the mess-hall’s, and you know I’m a slut for a good steak. …And anytime he came to my room was to check on the relay’s progress or to fetch me for an aerial tour.”

“You could do worse than a Brotherhood Elder,” Nora says, sidling up beside Adelais to gauge her face, her reactions. Adelais watches her warily from the corner of her eye. “Not interested?”

_Fuck no._

“Tell me, Nora, did I have any boyfriends or girlfriends before the war?”

Nora purses her lips. “Now that I think about it, no.”

“I have the sex-drive of a rock,” Adelais states blandly, “and while I can certainly appreciate the beauty of my fellow man, I have no interest in them –being with them. Cuddling up. Too much intimacy –gives me indigestion.”

Nora snorts, and the lift comes to a jerking halt. They step off together, making their way towards a barren patch of land where Nora says the Institute will better be able to transport them from.

“Maybe that’s something you’ll grow out of,” Nora goes on. “My mother always told me I just had to find the right partner. I scoffed at her back then, but then I met… well, I met Nate.”

Adelais tries not to scoff now as she casually adds, “And now you’ve met Danse.”

Nora stiffens at her side.

“You’re not the least bit subtle, and though he has the emotional range of a stalk of celery, he’s not either.”

She slaps her arm lightly, playfully. “You’re just like your mother, always so blunt.”

“You just confronted me about the Elder,” Adelais grumbles. “Least I could do was confront you about Danse.”

“We’re not involved in any serious way,” Nora states after a moment. “It’s just nice to have him watching my back, and… it’s going to sound terrible of me, but God, Ade, he reminds me so much of Nate.”

Adelais doesn’t see it. Nate was the best. He was kind and compassionate, and he knew when people were full of shit. He would have hated the Brotherhood and their bigotry, and he’d be disappointed in Nora –he’d be aghast.

Or so Adelais thinks. She could be wrong, though. She wasn’t married to the man, but she was around him a lot. She’d go camping with him and some of his old war buddies from time to time, and they would play videogames together for hours. She’d beat him every time, but he always insisted he let her win.

He’s the one who taught her how to fire a pistol, as well as helped her study for her entrance exams into C.I.T. When she left C.I.T for D.C., he helped her move. He was always supportive of everything she did. Kind. He was more of a father to her than her own had ever been, but he didn’t have to do much to outshine Hiroki Miyahara.

“Maybe I’d see it if I were around him more…” Adelais says. “I mean, they have a similar shade of hair.”

“Give it time. You’ll notice.”

They come to a stop, and Nora turns a knob on her Pipboy, giving a designation number and a, “Ready for relay,” into the small speaker.

Nora grabs her hand as a lightning bolt flashes, striking them dead on.

* * *

For a moment, Adelais ceases to exist. There is no thought, no feeling. No sensation. Only the blackness around her, and it… it is somehow so comforting. She’s just floating, scattered.

A century could have passed –months, days, seconds.

But she reforms, coming back to herself in a rounded room of grey and white paneling. The surface of the walls are blackened in some places, scorched from repeated relays if Adelais had to guess. The air which greets her skin and lungs is cool, conditioned, and she savours it for a long moment with her eyes closed.

Then Nora beckons her from the rounded chamber into another grey and white room; this one filled with monitors, servers, and other such equipment. Lights blink. Machines hum. It is obviously active but is devoid of life. The systems must run themselves in this wing of the Institute.

But it isn’t very impressive –nothing she hasn’t seen before. She’d been in a closet at RobCo. more impressive than this.

Yet it is the perfect place to plant the bug Nora had given her. There are no obvious security measures –no cameras immediately visible– and there aren’t any human witnesses. She even sees a terminal she can get to hacking on.

However, Adelais isn’t here to help the Brotherhood. She has other plans for the bug, other plans for herself that she devises as Nora leads her from the server room and into the next –yet another grey and white room, but this one holds a fancy-looking, glass elevator that is more in line with what Adelais was thinking of the Institute.

She steps in after Nora, watching as the woman brings her palm down on a red button. The elevator lurches before beginning a smooth descent downwards.

For a moment, Adelais only sees the metal interior gliding passed. The occasional white glare of too-bright lights. Then the world opens up around her, revealing a glass dome inside a separate dome of metal. The steel is punched with holes, and the light peeking through mimics stars hanging in the night sky.

They fall further, and Adelais sees glass mezzanines and walkways with figures in lab coats strolling about. Water flows from panels in the walls to the ground where small rapids part around trees –_alive, green trees._

Adelais wants to cry for some reason. Her eyes are heavy, burning with tears and her chest is tight.

But she blinks her eyes repeatedly, shushes the unexpected swell of emotions in her chest. She can’t get sentimental and emotional right now. She’s in the belly of the beast.

The scene pulled straight from a science-fiction novel disappears as they descend into another metal tube. It is a shorter than the first, soon opening up into more white and grey, but this time the walls are lined with strips of yellow. They add some much needed colour.

The elevator comes to a halt; the doors open. Nora leads her off, and they start down sterile halls where the only sound is that of their thick-soled boots walking along the dark-grey flooring.

“I expected to see wonder on your face, Ade, but you’re as expressionless as stone,” Nora grumbles from beside her, breaking the silence.

“I’ve been to places like this before, you know. This isn’t anything new to me.”

Her aunt gives a displeased, “harrumph,” as they step into another elevator. This one is all metal with no pretty, glass walls. The ride on it is mercifully short, and its doors open into a room with a wall lined with servers. At the far side is a glass-walled compartment where a child stands motionless with his head bowed.

Looking at him closely, he almost… he sort of looks like what Adelais always thought Shaun would grow into. His hair is the same shade of black as Nate’s had been –skin the same golden-brown tone. She looks to Nora in question, finding the brunette makes great effort to not look at the child. Her jaw is tense. Blue eyes glinting with steel.

“A Synth,” she says, her voice dead to Adelais’ ears. “It tricked me, too.”

Adelais doesn’t say a word, only spares the poor kid one last look as she follows Nora into the next room.

It is a pristine living area with a spotless couch and armchairs. A neat coffee table with a small stack of literature set in the middle –along with a vase holding what looks like… hydrangeas. Alive flowers, not cloth and plastic. They’re a light purple-blue in colour and absolutely beautiful. They’re everywhere in the room: in the dining area set upon the table, upon the desk and work area in one of the corners, and on the shelves.

And there’s a model of terminal Adelais hasn’t seen in over two hundred years.

It’s all an absolute blast from the past.

On one of the couches sits an aged man who Adelais knows immediately is Shaun. He looks _so_ much like Nate, so much so it’s heart-wrenching. Like a punch to the stomach, hitting her with a sudden grief she thought she buried when she helped Nora bury Nate.

Shaun stands as they draw near, and Adelais greets him with a hug. She knows she probably shouldn’t –they are strangers to one another– but she’d loved him. She knows he’s a grown ass man –not the mild-mannered baby she used to watch over– but she still loves him in some way. She’d been hoping to see him again, and even though she has a scientific brain, she’s an emotional being. Loving as any.

“I’m so happy to see you again,” she says in earnest to the man stiff in her grip. “Sorry if I’m making you uncomfortable.”

He pats her back somewhat hesitantly. “I… yes. Yes, you are making me uncomfortable, but it is nice to meet you as well.”

Adelais chuckles lightly, pulling away from Shaun to give him his personal space.

“I’ve heard much of you from… Nora,” he motions with his head to the brunette who stands silently to the side, watching them with a slight smile. Adelais isn’t sure if she’s wearing a mask or if she’s genuinely pleased by what she sees (Nora’s always been an excellent actress). “She says in the past you were quite the genius –tinkerer, scientist. That you even worked for RobCo. for a time –they poached you during your second year here at C.I.T.”

Adelais’ smile and enthusiasm ebbs. This is a familiar line she’s heard, a familiar situation she finds herself in. Nora bragged on her, and now the only reason there’s any interest in Adelais is because of her brain –in what her brain can do for someone else.

“Correct,” she chirps, forcing her smile. “Robotics division. And I dabbled a bit in organic chemistry –dabbled in a little bit of everything really.”

“It’s… gratifying –or endearing, rather– to know a mind such as mine exists in our family tree,” Shaun remarks. “I must admit, I’ve been rather eager to meet you, to hear your thoughts on the Synths –the Institute.”

“Oh, I’m incredibly happy we’re of like minds,” Adelais assures –and she really is. She may not have wanted a cold Shaun, but she did want a scientist Shaun –someone she could share her passions with. Teach and mold. “I always hoped you’d become an intellectual, and not… well, Nate wanted you to be a little, sports star. But I… I planned on teaching you about bots and chemistry and… well, so much.”

Adelais’ suddenly wistful, missing something. Him, she supposes –or what could have been.

She smiles at him again, genuinely, but sadly. “Someone else got to, though. But that’s okay.”

Shaun smiles ever so faintly, a spark going off in his wrinkle-lined blue eyes –everything about him screams of Nate other than those blue eyes; no, they are all Nora. “How would you like a tour of the facilities, Adelais? If Nora will allow it.” He glances his mother’s way, a question in his eyes.

Adelais’ hands tighten into fists. _She doesn’t own me. She doesn’t make my decisions._

“Of course,” Nora says with a smile. “In fact, I’d love it if you kept her out of trouble while I head over to Libertalia with… X6, was it? The Synth in the dark shades.”

“X6-88, yes.” Shaun bobs his head once. “He’s ready to head out when you are.”

“Then I won’t keep him waiting.” Nora reaches for her hand to squeeze. “You be good.”

Adelais inclines her head. “I will.”

Her aunt doesn’t dally after that, only salutes them with two fingers as she heads out a side door.

“Where would you like to get started, Adelais?” Shaun asks her as soon as the door has closed. “Robotics? Bioscience? The SRB? Advanced Systems? A walk about the commons?”

Adelais grins at her cousin, having hoped he’d ask that exact question. “It might be presumptuous of me, and maybe you’d like it to be the grand finale, but I’d love to see how Synths are made.”

Shaun’s lips quirk ever so slightly. “I usually do save that for last, but I’d be more than glad to.”

The blonde clasps her hands together in delight. “Great! And then you pick the rest of the route, but lemme tell you, I’m next most interested in Robotics.”

Her cousin beckons with a wave of his hand for her to follow after. “I thought that might be the case.”


	6. Benign Resignation

Building a robot is nothing to Adelais. She’s created dozens and dozens of them in her life; from simple, mechanical arms that could only press a button to advanced, A.I. helper bots. Her mechanical wonders help guard roads and settlements across the Commonwealth. They ensure her chem lab runs even when she's away, helping to create medicine that goes out to all those in need.

But all she’s ever done seems so… lackluster and small compared to Synths.

The Institute doesn’t like to think this way, but they’ve created humans. Sentient life capable of thinking and feeling and dreaming. They bleed. They sleep. They create. It’s astounding.

As well as morally bankrupt.

Not because it is technology gone too far or anything like that, but because these beings are created with their only purpose in mind to be a slave. To service those of the Institute who see them as nothing more than a machine even when they gave them a brain, a heart. All the squishy bits.

So, Adelais is amazed, as well as grossed out. Mystified by how blind the people around her are.

But she doesn’t say this aloud. No, she simply watches as a skeleton is assembled on a bed of nerves. How muscles and fat deposits are 3-D printed onto the frame. She watches electric prongs press into the flesh of the man-made human, shocking it to life –and it is so amazing how the muscles twitch before her very eyes! How the fingers move minutely and the chest begins to flutter with breath.

She watches it come alive and walk across the room to pass through a door marked as “Processing”.

Then again –five more times until she is satisfied.

As she and Shaun leave the lab, he asks for her thoughts. She’d like to tell him all of what she thinks –of the Synths and those creating them– but she opts for a more polite observation.

“I’m incredibly impressed –as well as a bit… jealous, maybe?” It’s hard to articulate her thoughts when she’s trying not to say something that would no doubt earn her a strike or two. "I’ve made human-like robots before, but never something so spot on. …It’s miraculous.”

Shaun inclines his head graciously. “I’m glad to hear that. …And I’d very much like to hear of your own work, Adelais. What you’ve done in the past and more recently.”

Adelais tells him of all the contests she won back in her day. Her varied projects and accomplishments while at C.I.T. She tells him of her short time at RobCo., explaining how she felt as if she were wasting away there –not living up to her full potential.

Because while she might hate the only interest anyone having in her is the interest they have in her mechanical mind, she’s going to use it to her advantage. She’d rather be in the Institute than with the Brotherhood. She needs Shaun to officially invite her into the fold, then she’ll out Nora as a Brotherhood zealot. Her aunt’s access to the Institute will be fully rescinded, but before they expel her, Adelais has to fake her death.

Because Adelais can’t just disappear into the Institute. No, it would fuel Nora’s fire –have the woman searching mercilessly for a way back in, and Adelais is sure her aunt could do it again. Someway. Somehow. She’s that driven.

But if Adelais were to die… well, Nora would certainly lose some of her fire.

The tinkerer’s heart twists guiltily at the thought, but she forces it away, instead focusing on Shaun’s questions and the brief respites from conversation they take while touring the four different divisions of the Institute.

Overall, the people –their projects– are impressive. They created the Synths and the molecular relay. They cloned a fucking gorilla. They’ve even turned the test reactor in the bowels of C.I.T into something potentially functional –if only they could find the few last components they need.

Often, though, Adelais thinks they are missing the bigger picture. Sure, testing out their crops on the surface world is potentially beneficial, but they aren’t doing it for anyone but themselves. They aren’t trying to lessen the strain of those above.

They only think of themselves and the Synths they refuse to see as more than a piece of machinery.

The Institute is impressive but incredibly misguided.

Adelais and Shaun end their tour where they began: in the Director’s quarters where they chitchat and dine. It isn’t a fancy meal –just dehydrated food packets that aren’t completely terrible– but it's probably one of the safest Adelais’ has had since before the war. She’s had to purify everything before eating or drinking it, but even then, there’s always still a little background radiation.

The talking goes on forever, never steering towards the topic Adelais waits for. The tinkerer starts to worry Shaun might never pop the question, ask her to join. Did she not answer his questions in a satisfactory way? Did she not impress him? Is she not good enough?

The blonde nervously nurses a glass of ice-cold water (the most refreshing she's had in too damn long), trying not to let her anxieties get the best of her.

“After what you’ve seen today,” Shaun eventually begins, bringing the tinkerer no small amount of relief, “how would you feel about being a part of it? I’m certain we could find a perfect fit for you in either Advanced Systems or Robotics.”

Adelais sets down her empty cup with a smile. “I might be tempted, but I have a few… requests. Some stipulations. Ah, and some information.”

Shaun gestures for her to say whatever is on her mind, and Adelais certainly gives him an earful.

* * *

Her cousin has just as many questions as Adelais expected him to, and a lot of his inquiries are him needing affirmation.

Is she sure Nora really supports the Brotherhood of Steel and isn’t just pretending?

Adelais is one-hundred percent certain. Nora never would have joined up to begin with if she didn’t agree with their philosophy.

Then it is safe to assume Nora would be a danger to their cause?

Most definitely. He should know by now what she’s capable of. Granting her any further access –letting her in on any more of what’s going on– is only going to lead to catastrophe for him and his Institute.

They have to play this carefully, she tells him, and she already has the perfect plan in mind.

The first step is her planting fake data on the bug they gave her, as well as some truth. The best lies are part truth.

Shaun agrees with her on that, then pauses for a moment before asking her, “How do I know you aren’t lying to me?”

“You don’t,” Adelais says plainly, filling up her water glass. “But I’m not. I want away from what’s become of my life, and this is the most opportune way for me to accomplish that. I don’t want Nora ruining it for me. I don’t want to be what she wants me to be.”

The tinkerer takes a long draw of her water. “And then there’s this place and all the technology I haven’t seen in centuries. I’m already thinking of what I could do and build, and I’m excited.”

“Then what’s the next step in your plan?”

“While the Brotherhood tries to decode the data and investigate the lies and truth they find, you give Nora a few, fake missions. If I disappear so soon after coming here, there will be suspicion. We have to drag it out for a bit, but when the time comes, I fake my death and just relay back here –speaking of which, I’ll need a courser chip, but we can get on that later.”

“Do you have a plan for that worked out yet?” Shaun asks of her.

“Mostly, yeah, but it could be improved upon…” She clears her throat, somewhat guilty as she asks, “Do you have any out of commissions Synths that we can make look like me?”

Shaun nods simply. “A simple task. We’ll just need to do a full body scan of you so we can recreate it to perfection.”

“Good, good,” she takes a few sips of her water, not liking herself for this but knowing what she needs to do. “Anyway, I engineer a deathly scene, plant the body, and relay back here. You give Nora a few more bogus missions, then restrict her from the Institute entirely. Then it’s done. I’m free to work here, and you’re not unintentionally aiding in the destruction of all you hold dear.”

“Which brings us to your requirements and stipulations, correct?”

Adelais grins at him. “Indeed, it does. …Listen, it’s not much that I want. Just a small space for me to work privately on what strikes my fancy. I’ve never liked doing just one thing. Sometimes I like building robots. Sometimes I like cooking up weird concoctions. I just want to be sure that if I have an idea, I’ll be able to test it –that I'll be able to do what_ I_ want. I’m not…” She sighs. “I’m not having a repeat of RobCo. They stuck me behind a desk and partition for months. I couldn’t stand it.”

Shaun tilts his head in understanding. “Of course, you’re free to pursue your own experiments, and there’s a space we could see about clearing out for you. It might take a while, but we have some time to get things settled.”

Adelais’ chest flushes with relief, a bit of excitement. This is going better than she had hoped. He believes her,_ and_ he’s letting her have her way? Not forcing her to work under someone on a project she has no interest in? Perfection... But almost… too perfect.

She holds onto her skepticism, reminding herself it is safest to be wary. But she keeps a grin affixed to her face as she says, “Then I’m on board.”

Shaun extends his hand to her; she takes it. “Glad to have you.”

* * *

Before Adelais and Nora relayed to the Institute, Adelais told her aunt she’d very much like to go home once they were done. She missed her Red Rocket Station and her usual work, and Nora seemed to understand that. She even nodded her head in the affirmative and said, “Of course.”

But when Adelais relays from the Institute hand-in-hand with Nora, she comes back to herself standing on a patch of scorched cement just outside of the Boston Airport where the _Prydwen_ hangs overhead. A depressing reminder of her reality, of the situation she is in.

“I was under the impression you were taking me home,” Adelais says, unable to keep the chill sternness from her voice.

“I am,” Nora says, shooting the blonde a look that tells her to have some patience. “I thought we should deliver the holotape first, then go home.”

Adelais doesn’t say a word to that, only sighs and pulls Nora along behind her as she heads to the damned lift that will take her up to the damned airship where she can hand off the damned holotape to stupid, fucking, damned Arthur Maxson.

She wants to get this over with. She has shit to do.

Nora watches her as they rise to the airship; Adelais pretends she doesn't notice, her eyes on they unchanged heavens. She knows she needs to get a grip on herself, go back to her benign resignation, but dammit, she thought she was going home. She thought after this nonsense she would just go back to her workshop where she would have to deal with the occasional, pestering inquiry in regards to her joining the Brotherhood until she made her escape.

"You're mad," Nora says. It is a statement, not a question.

"Of course I am," Adelais huffs. "You said we could go home. I miss my bed and my workshop. The quiet." She sighs, hanging her head to look at her scuffed-up boots. "...It's not so bad here, Nora, but I've been dealing with recruitment shit for a month now. I just want to go home to sit and think on it."

Her aunt is silent for a long moment; Adelais feels her eyes on her back. "We'll go tomorrow –first thing in the morning," she says. "I'll drop talk of enlistment for a while, but I already told you, I wouldn't be pressing the issue if I was not certain this is where you belong."

The grey-eyed girl doesn't want to have this conversation again. She runs her hands back through her hair, sighing softly to herself. "Okay."

The ride ends in silence, continues in silence as they head to the flight-deck where they find Elder Maxson standing before the wide windows allowing him to see the Commonwealth stretched out before him in all its dead, crisped-around-the-edges glory.

He asks if they brought him good news.

“A whole holotape’s worth,” Adelais responds casually, handing the little rectangle of truth and lies over to him. “There should be something useful on there.”

The Elder studies it for a moment before handing it off to a nearby scribe and instructing him to take it to someone by the name of Proctor Quinlan.

“I know you just made it back, Knight Graves,” Maxson says after the scribe has left the room, “but I’m sending you and Paladin Danse on a search and recover operation. The vertibird is already prepared, but take a moment if you need it.”

Nora –much to Adelais’ disgust– does the dopey, little salute before agreeing without question. She then turns to the tinkerer and says, “I’ll take you back to Sanctuary once I’m back. Promise.”

Adelais clenches her jaw and bites her tongue as she gives a stiff nod. She doesn’t dare say a word. She’s too damned annoyed to play nice right now. Anything she says will be biting and ugly.

“Why don’t you brief Elder Maxson?” her aunt suggests, turning on her heel to leave the room. “Tell him about everything you learned.”

Adelais gives another stiff nod as she listens for Nora’s footsteps to fade away altogether. Then for the assuring sound of one of the heavy doors creaking closed.

Arthur watches her all the while, a brow raised.

The tinkerer turns on her own heel once she is certain Nora is well away, a quick jerk of her chin the only indication she wants Maxson to follow her out of the room. He wordlessly does, staying quiet even once she’s entered into his room. Even after she shuts the door and locks it tight.

Only then does she say a thing, and it is in a growl.

“On your knees, Maxson,” she orders, “I’m in a bad mood.”

A frightfully horrible mood that has her wanting to rip things to shreds, but since she can’t go on a destructive spree like she wants, she’ll settle for mind-numbing sex.

The Elder doesn’t seem opposed. No, he follows her instructions dutifully, his only question as to whether or not he should disrobe.

She gives him the go ahead as she pulls her hair up into a ponytail.

Adelais doesn’t pay the man much attention for a long moment. She takes her time with unlacing and removing her boots. Then undoing the fastenings on her vault suit before oh, so slowly unzipping it. She steps out of it, unhurried and meandering as she shimmies out of her underwear and brassiere.

When she finally turns to acknowledge the infuriating fucker kneeling on the bed, she finds him watching her closely. “The scars on your back,” he asks, “what are they from?”

The tinkerer’s spine tingles at the mere mention of the angry scars, but she doesn’t answer. She doesn’t owe him shit. “I didn’t say you could speak to me. Just shut your mouth and do as your told.”

He shuts his mouth, face flickering with aggravation. The look doesn’t last. Not when she steps up to him, telling him to listen to her instructions oh, so carefully as she guides his hands to exactly where she wants them. As she tells him exactly how she wants him to touch her.

Arthur Maxson follows her instructions to the letter.


	7. Morally Wrong

_The devil rakes its claws furiously along the weathered, debris-strewn floor, roaring and growling and gnashing its wicked teeth. The doorframe bulging, groaning, and splintering as it tries its damndest to free itself, to come for Adelais as she cowers against the counter. She tries to move away, to stand or scramble to a far corner, but she is woozy. Her back flush with pain from when the devil raked its claws along her spine, and she knocked it terribly good against the counter when she came rolling into the abandoned building._

_She doesn’t know that she’s ever been so scared, not even when the bombs dropped. No, she had stood in awe of mushrooms clouds and the roaring wall of devastation. That death would have been instant, near-painless. But the death before her… Adelais can see the devil ripping into her bit by bit, taking an arm to nibble on. A leg. Making her watch as she’s devoured until the blood loss sends her spiraling under._

_She’s already blanking, her vision going between fuzz, focus, and pure blackness, and as she tries to drag herself further back into the building while the creature tries to force its way in, her blood-slicked fingers find a discarded laser musket –her laser musket. She must have lost it when she came flying in here…_

_Adelais takes the weapon into her shaky hands, noticing it has just enough ammo for a single, fully charged blow and that it was damaged by her flight and subsequent fall. A panel on the side has come loose, and when she touches it, the small sheet of metal clinks to the ground, revealing several wires and capacitators._

_Her scattered wits suddenly come back to her, and she begins to work robotically. She rips out a select few wires, squinting against the sparks which come shooting out of the musket and feels as the metal begins to grow red hot in her hands. Overheating, getting ready to blow._

_She tosses the musket the devil’s way and pulls herself just a little further away, hoping to put herself outside the blast radius, before she crumples fully. Her left cheek strikes the ground, embedding with bits of glass and rubble, and her head pounds as her back pulsates. She hears the explosion, feels its heat, but both sensations are muted and dull. Far away almost._

_“Where are you, Nora?” she mumbles, eyes slipping shut, far too heavy for her to keep open any longer. “You said you’d have my back…”_

_But now, it –she– is in tatters, and Adelais bitterly loses consciousness, submerging in a thick mire of blackness that is somehow more comforting than the awake world, than the hellscape, she’d awoken to._

* * *

Nora returns five days later, and she comes bearing another excuse –another call to arms on the behalf of the Institute. She insists it’s something she has to attend to at once and swears up and down that once she’s done, she’ll take Adelais home.

This happens again and again, too many times for it to be anything other than intentional.

And Adelais has tried to take matters into her own hands. She started to walk off on her own, but a fucker in power armor carted her back to Arthur Maxson. She even asked him –and nicely for that matter– if he would please arrange for a vertibird to take her back to Sanctuary.

He refused, not even offering a half-baked excuse as to why.

She’s been ignoring him since, completely disregarding his existence even when he comes into her room hoping for something to do. She’s decided to wash her hands of him completely.

Adelais feels herself becoming listless again, and she spends a great deal of her time locked in her room, head on her desk and eyes on the steel walls.

And it is at one such moment, as she stares unseeingly at the bolted steel, that she gets a message on her Pipboy.

_“The body-double is ready, and other preparations are in order. Signal when you’re ready. -S”_

The tinkerer sits straight up at her desk. She completely forgot these damned things can send messages! She could have been scheming with Shaun this entire time…

Though she is completely angry at herself, Adelais’ brain goes to whirring. A plan begins to formulate in mere moments.

_"I’m going to need a bit of assistance. Have a Courser waiting with the double and a change of clothes in the Cambridge Polymer Labs and a few Gen-1’s poking around outside the ruins. Don’t set any parameters for them to be non-hostile towards me. I’ll be heading that way shortly. -A”_

A few moments pass before she gets back a very simple, _“It is done. -S”_

Adelais breathes a sigh of relief and stands, mind-racing a mile a minute.

She doesn’t have much to prepare, on the outing she took to the Institute, she left her secret projects in the care of Shaun. Anything else she has, she doesn’t care enough about to keep. She doesn’t need mementos when she’s dead.

But she does want to take the knife Arthur gave to her. She’s grown semi-attached to it.

Sliding it into her boot, Adelais emerges from her room, features and demeanor schooled into boredom. She wanders her way to the flight-deck, to the bay Arthur always stands in, his eyes on the carnage below.

He must hear her boots along the floor, for he turns as soon as she’s stepped into the room, his scarred face reading of his surprise –albeit briefly.

Maxson opens his mouth to say something no doubt infuriating, but Adelais cuts him off.

“Listen man,” her voice is tired, but strong. Uncompromising. “I gotta get out of here for a minute. I don’t care if it’s with you or one of your little soldiers, but I need to take a walk. And not just around the damned airport –I’m tired of looking at it.”

He’s silent for a long moment, studying her closely before he inclines his head shortly. “That’s doable.”

It ends up being him escorting her –she knew it would be– and she is quiet the entire ride from the _Prydwen _to the Cambridge Police Station. She doesn’t have anything to say to him, and he’s smart enough to not push a conversation.

They land, and Adelais waits patiently through all the saluting bullshit and exuberant greetings.

After they’ve left, he allows her to pick the path they take, and instead of heading straight away to the polymer labs as she wants, Adelais starts them on a meandering path all around the area.

Arthur doesn’t complain, he seems just as happy as she is to get off the _Prydwen_ for the afternoon.

“How long are you going to stay mad at me?” he asks of her as they do a loop around the old fraternal post.

“I’ve never stopped being mad at you,” Adelais tells him factually. “I’m mad at you right now –not as mad as I could be but still mad.”

Elder Maxson sighs explosively, raking his hands back through his short hair. “I’m really trying with you, Adelais. I’m trying to be nice. I’m trying to be accommodating. I…” His hand is suddenly around her wrist. “I want you to stay. I want you to be happy here.”

Adelais turns to him with wide, grey eyes, first staring at the hand that grips her, then at his face. She can’t read much of it –not behind those dark sunglasses he wears– but he’s being serious. Sincere.

This sounds dangerously close to a confession, and it honestly frightens her. Has everything within her freezing and buffering.

How could this man possibly like her? Want her around for anything more than her to be a lackey?

“You’re doing a poor job of communicating that,” she says, gathering up the wits he’d momentarily scattered and jerking her hand away. “I don’t feel like a guest, I feel like a prisoner. I miss my home, and I know you and Nora must be conspiring against me. Keeping me here. I’m going fucking stir-crazy, and you’re content to let that happen.”

“I…” Arthur drags his hands down his face, obviously at his wits end with her. “What do I have to do, Adelais, to make you happy? What do I have to do to make you stop hating me so? I just want to be able to have normal conversations with you that don’t end with us both miserably angry.”

The blonde shakes her head, walking away from him. He follows after of course.

“Can you change your mind, Arthur Maxson?” she asks of him. “Change your values? Can you look at a Ghoul and see a decent human being and not a feral in waiting? Can you recognize that a Synth is as organic as you are –as human as you are? Could you even try?”

“I…,” he starts but just as quickly falls silent beside her. Adelais prefers him that way.

She shakes her head. “Thought so.”

“I don’t see the world as you do, Adelais,” he tells her. “I don’t think I can. Some of the things you say and do strike me as so morally wrong.”

Adelais snorts, eyes ahead of her, scanning for the building she so desperately wishes they were at already. “It’s the same for me, pal.”

The Polymer Lab –a squat, grey building that is wider than it is tall– enters Adelais’ line of sight, and she immediately spies the four or so Gen-1 Synths milling about the front. She’s never been so glad to see the mechanical menaces.

“We could both t-.”

Adelais clamps a hand over Maxson’s mouth, shushing him and tugging him into the nearby cover of some scrubby bushes.

“Synths,” she tells him in a whisper. “Gen-1’s. At least four of them as far as I can tell.”

She uncovers his mouth, finding his lips have formed a grim line. He peers through the meager cover, looking this way and that. “There must be something they’re looking for…”

"We going to take them down or what?” she asks.

He looks to her in surprise. “Oh, you’re okay with disposing of these Synths?”

“Don’t you fucking start with me,” she growls at him, “I’ve told you that I know this generation of Synth is just machinery. They are dangerous. I don’t want them walking around and picking people and settlements apart any more than you do.”

“Do you know how to use a gun?” he asks.

Adelais gives a simple nod.

Arthur unholsters a laser pistol and draws a smaller semi-automatic pistol from an inner coat pocket. He hands her the smaller of the two –a glock she thinks, and its fully loaded with .380 caliber bullets.

“I already know you can fight,” he says, “but I want you to be careful.”

She rolls her eyes at the Elder, making a ‘psh,’ noise. “I’ll grab their attention; you pick them off from behind.”

Without waiting for a response, Adelais rises from the bushes and immediately makes herself a target by shooting one of the Synths in the head.

It sparks and twitches as it goes down, and its companions set their sensors upon her, releasing round after round.

Adelais takes off at a sprint, serpentine-ing as she starts on a lap around the labs. The Gen-1’s follow after her, and from her peripheries, she sees one or two of them fall.

That leaves one on her tail, and it follows after her as she rounds a corner where she immediately plows into a rigid, mechanical structure that seizes her so suddenly –so surprisingly– that she screams.

Adelais is deeply ashamed of herself as the hidden Synth drags her through a rusted backdoor and into the innards of the polymer labs. The one that had been on her tail slams the door shut, and through a broken window pane, she sees it start back towards the front of the building.

It might be able to distract Maxson for a while, as will the other Synths pulling themselves from the woodworks as the one carting Adelais drags her from one room and into another.

She’s dropped onto the floor of a second-floor room –an old, wrecked office by the looks of it– where a man dressed in all black stands as still and silent as a statue. Adelais knows immediately he is the Courser she had Shaun send.

In a dead monotone, he tells the Synth that nabbed her to stand guard outside the door.

Adelais pulls herself to her feet as the Synth exits the room. “That went very well,” she says, and isn’t surprised when he doesn’t say anything back. “You brought my body?”

“Yes ma’am,” says the courser, turning and gesturing to the identical copy of Adelais that sits behind the decayed desk across the room.

Her eyes are closed, face relaxed and smooth –as if she were merely sleeping. She is sleeping, sort of. Her chest feathers with breath. It has Adelais’ stomach turning, her heart lurching guiltily in her chest. Because that isn't her. It is some poor soul made to look like her. Doesn't matter if they were out of commission or not, at one point, they had a life of their own. A face of their own. But now they are her, and they have been sentenced to death. She's about to sentence herself to death.

In this moment, she feels so bizarre. Outside of herself, but the sound of a firefight waging just outside the front doors has her snapping out of her mind.

Adelais hurriedly shucks of her clothes –keeping only her knife– and throws them at the Courser, asking him if he would be so kind as to dress her body as she had been dressed before –and to move it in front of the desk and keep it standing for a few moments.

He sets about his task with another dead to her ears, “Yes ma’am. And your change of clothes is on the desk.”

Adelais hurries to dress herself in what is an identical match to the Courser’s all black ensemble, then turns to help the Courser, making sure her clone wears her clothes exactly as she was wearing them: with the sleeves of the vault suit tied around her waist and her tank top tucked into the pants. Then her pants tucked into the properly laced up boots. She also makes sure her hair is pulled into the same style of pony-tail.

When Adelais is satisfied, she steps back from her cold, dead body and pulls in a deep breath.

“Call the Gen-1 back in here.”

The Courser does so. She asks him to tell the Synth to shoot the clone in the chest.

He does so, and Adelais closes her eyes, unwilling to watch.

She hears the sound of the laser rifle fire once, then twice. A third time.

“It's done?” she asks in a hoarse voice.

“Yes ma’am,” the Courser assures her blandly.

“Then let the body fall.”

She hears the thud of the body striking the ground, and she dares to look at it for only a moment –to see her life’s blood spilling out onto the ground from an awful, fatal wound to the chest.

It looks believable –in fact, it’s too real.

Adelais blinks her eyes repeatedly as she kneels beside the fallen version of herself, placing the pistol Arthur had given her close to her clone’s hand, making it look as if she dropped it as she fell to the floor.

Then she steps back from the scene, unable to stand it for a moment longer. She turns to the Courser who stands quietly behind her, a hand dragging across her eyes as she bids him to, "Get us out of here."

He nods. “Yes ma’am. Stand at my side, please.”

Adelais moves to stand beside him, listening as he gives his designation and a, “Ready for relay.”

A bolt of energy strikes her, pulling her through the void. Part of her wants to stay, to never come back together.

But she does, coming back to herself whole and unharmed with small flecks of blood staining her hands.

And she’ll just have to live with that.


	8. Sorriest Thing

After the scream, Arthur Maxson should have expected to find Adelais Miyahara dead. But as he fought his way into the polymer labs –through it– he told himself that couldn't be the case. The girl is resourceful. Brutal. She probably found a closet to hide in, in the event she got overwhelmed. He would find her there waiting for him, and she would bitch at him for taking so long. He would be okay with that –she would be speaking to him again.

Instead, he finds her lying dead on the floor with a hole in her chest, blood seeping out around her to form a crimson puddle.

The sight has his chest tight. His breath hard to find as his heart thuds painfully, furiously.

His hand clenches over his own wound, a shallow score on the right side of his torso. It is nothing compared to hers.

There is no doubt in his mind that she is dead, yet he goes to her, finding her name leaving his lips as a broken question.

Of course she does not answer, and of course she is going cold as he pulls her into his arms with a wince.

She shouldn’t have been, but Adelais was important to him. It should have been impossible, but he liked her. Her liked her a great deal. For her sharp mind and tongue, for her zero tolerance for his bullshit. Moments with her were real and full of friction. She didn’t salute or bow or speak to him with near-reverence. He needed that.

And before she ran off, he was going to suggest they both try to see the world as the other did. He knows they are both steadfast in their beliefs, but he was willing. He would try. He would attempt to repair things between them.

Because he wanted her to like him, too.

Arthur rises to his feet, hands and arms coated with the blood of the limp girl in his arms. His side twinges with pain, but it is easily ignored. He barely notices anything around him as he makes his way out of the pre-war building.

He should have taken her home when she asked him to.

He shouldn’t have listened to Knight Graves when she said Adelais always gives in eventually. She can be obstinate, but she’s lazy. She’ll eventually tire of fighting. She’d become pliable, and she’d finally see her aunt was right.

He knew better than that when she told him –he didn’t understand how she could think that of her niece. But maybe the Knight knew a different version of Adelais than he did.

He knew a girl full of fire and steel, unwavering resolve.

Nora Graves thought her a stubborn child.

They both failed her.

* * *

For two days, Arthur stays on the flight deck, his eyes never straying from the Commonwealth below, and his thoughts never far from the blonde girl who lay dead in a coffin in the airport below –or from her aunt who is due back from her mission any day.

Knight Graves will be an instant reminder of his failure.

He dreads her return, knowing he’ll be the one who has to deliver the news. He’ll receive the blunt of her rage and sorrow.

He’s dealt with it before, but it seems more personal this time.

A scribe brings him word when her vertibird arrives. He steels himself for the conversation.

Paladin Danse and Knight Graves enter into the room looking haggard. He can’t remember what mission he sent them on that would have them looking so tired and roughed-up. His mind is all fuzz and forgetfulness.

The Elder starts to ask for their report, but Knight Graves addresses him first.

“Something happen?” she asks. “It’s… well, the air is heavy up here.”

Arthur nods shortly, pulling in a deep breath. “Yes… it…” He doesn’t know what to say to her, the words he had strung together in his mind slip from his grasp. “I… I must apologize to you, Nora.”

Her curious expression falls into dread; the light in her blue eyes dim. “What happened?” she demands, fists curling at her sides.

“Adelais, she… She asked to go on a walk around Cambridge, and we ran into a large number of Gen-1 Synths.” It had been the biggest group he’d seen –more than just the four or five out front. Dozens were riddling the innards of the building. “She ran off ahead of me, and by the time I found her, she was….”

His hand can’t help but reach for his chest, remembering the hole in Adelais’.

“It was too late.”

The Knight stands there blankly for a moment, unblinking and unmoving. The Paladin behind her steps forward, reaching for her as if to provide comfort. She breaks out of her freeze, the blank shock transforming into unmitigated fury.

Nora Graves advances on him, eyes full of tears. She jams a finger into his chest.

“You were supposed to watch her!” she shouts at him. “You were supposed to protect her!”

“I know.” His voice sounds of defeat to his own ears. He doesn’t bother to defend himself. He’d promised Nora to keep eyes on her niece, to keep her safe. She had trusted him to do so, and he completely failed her.

He’d failed Adelais.

Nora starts to shout something else, but her voice breaks into sobs and she goes straight away to her knees where she buries her face into her hands.

The Elder doesn’t try to move her. Doesn’t try to comfort her. He doesn’t think he should. He just lets the Knight sob at his feet, waiting until the cries give way to sniffles and wet, little hiccups.

He kneels before her, not wanting to meet her bloodshot, teary gaze, but he makes himself. “I brought her body back here –she’s down below. I do not know where you want her buried –if you want her buried– but you have a vertibird at your disposal and any extra hands that you need.”

Nora rubs at her eyes, her mouth a firm, unforgiving line. “How do you expect to save the Commonwealth –save anyone– if you can’t keep one girl safe?” Her voice is so low, he’s certain only he can hear her. “You should have known better –Adelais had no combat training. She-. She…”

The Knight shakes her head as she rises stiffly to her feet, leaving Maxson there kneeling on the ground. Feeling the weight of what she said upon his shoulders.

“I need a few days, Elder,” she goes on, a slight tremble to her voice. “To get things sorted –myself sorted. I will return when I know I’m capable of serving.”

Arthur Maxson rises as well, inclining his head in understanding. “Take the time you need… And I… I truly am sorry, Nora.”

The gaze she levels upon him says she knows that –says he is the sorriest thing she’s ever seen.


	9. Personal Affects

Summer has cast a thick, muggy blanket over the Commonwealth, leaving the air sticky and the cracked pavement sweltering. Heat comes off the ground in waves, distorting the landscape in a warped haze. The cloudless, blue sky above offers no protection from the bright sun which beats relentlessly down on a surface twisted and scorched by atomic fire. A breeze blows, but even it is warm.

John McDonough, known in the Commonwealth as Hancock, pulls his worn, tricorner hat down further over his eyes, squinting against the sunlight reflecting off windows, scraps of metal, and the quickly drying puddles left behind by a thunderstorm three days passed. His jacket and shirt are both unbuttoned in an attempt to cool him off, but all that has been accomplished is exposing his already burned skin to another source of blistering. He makes no moves to button his clothing, though. The cloth would just stick to his sweat-dampened skin and chafe uncomfortably.

On such a sweltering, hellish day, Hancock would normally be in the comfort of the State House in his city of Goodneighbor, kicked back and riding a Jet high. Partaking in other “sins”. Listening to Fahr and her chess talk. Tending to a mayoral duty or two.

Instead, he walks the busy streets of Sanctuary, a fairly new settlement encompassing an old-world suburb, Vault 111, and a Red Rocket station. Despite being new and not as well developed as Diamond City, Covenant, or Goodneighbor, Sanctuary is a settlement on the rise. Steadily expanding. Steadily improving. Just a few months ago, it was no more than a partially ruined cul-de-sac. Garbage strewn and shrouded in old-world ghosts. Now it’s a hub for trading and welcomes all: Ghouls, Synths, and any other wasteland weirdos.

It’s the home of his best friend in the Commonwealth: Nora Graves, the Sole Survivor of Vault 101 –a powerful whirlwind of a woman. Dauntless and determined.

Or usually that’s how he would describe her. A courier brought him a note just a few days ago –a request from Nora’s Mr. Handy, Codsworth, to come for a visit. The bot’s mistress is apparently in a terrible way. Her niece died.

Hancock had all but forgotten Nora had niece. He’s heard of her but never met her face-to-face –and he only knows about her because Nora’s mentioned her on occasion. She lives –lived– in the Red Rocket station just outside of Sanctuary and never left it. She stays –stayed– at work.

Hancock never bothered to go meet her, never bothered to go near the station. It was –is– a bed of chaos. Always busy, hectic. Lights flash in the windows; sparks jump out of the doors, often times accompanied by great plumes of smoke. Machines constantly roar and whir. Caravans are always loading or unloading cargo.

It is constant action. Constant work. Hancock had no reason to get in the way.

Then there’s this bot always milling around the outside of the station: an amalgamation of several different robots. Its torso is that of an Assualtron, and from its back sprout all the attachments of a Mr. Handy. The head boasts the laser cannon Assualtrons have but a touch smaller, positioned in such a way it looks like a mouth. The upper portion has a grated sort of look –like that of a Sentry bot, and just like a Sentry bot, it has minigun barrels in its hands.

Just the sight of it has most people high-tailing it away. It’s sure kept him away.

The Ghoul breaks from the throng of bodies travelling the sidewalks, quickly crossing the street and skirting around lowing brahmin and carts to arrive in front of Nora’s house: a simple one-story dwelling all patched up with wood and cement. Back when Hancock first came to Sanctuary, the structure was all riddled with holes. The roof caving in. He’d put in a lot of work helping Nora restore her home from before the war, and seeing it always reminds him of the progress being made.

Straightening his hat and buttoning up his shirt, Hancock approaches the front door and raps out a convoluted secret knock Nora and he had devised months ago. A series of knocks, pauses, finger tapping, and the like that would alert the other it was a friend who approached, not an enemy to blast with a shotgun.

The door opens after a moment, revealing not Nora but a floating sphere of ocular attachments and tools: Codsworth, the diligent and polite Mr. Handy.

“Ah, Mayor Hancock!” His voice is a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness. I’ve been waiting days for one of missus’ friends to arrive. I’m surprised –delighted but surprised. I thought you would have been the last to show.”

The bot ushers the mayor into the living room: a space Nora typically keeps nice and tidy, but it is a mess.

There are boxes everywhere. Junk set upon every surface. Dirt on the floors. Garbage and clothes strewn about.

“Pardon the mess,” Codsworth says, “Nora has asked me not to touch a thing, and it’s all just been… piling up.”

“I don’t mind.” Hancock really doesn’t. His own home isn’t the tidiest –his city isn’t the tidiest. “But tell me what happened –what’s going on? Your letter kind of made it sound like Nora’s gone off the deep end.”

“I worry that she has,” the bot admits. “She… I don’t believe you’ve heard yet, but finding Shaun didn’t go according to plan. I’ll let her tell you about that, but… I think it was the first blow. Then a group of Gen-1’s got Adelais. Nora went back into the Institute. She didn’t tell me what happened, but I can’t imagine it was pretty. All I know is they have locked her out completely.”

Hancock sucks in a breath through his teeth. That is a lot of knocks for someone to take in just a few weeks.

“What’s she doin’ now?”

“She’s been going through everything –old pictures, memories.” The bot’s attachments appear to gesture to the stack of boxes and bags around them. “Burning them. Everything of Adelais’, Nate’s, and Shaun’s that she has held on to, she insists on doing away with now. And when she’s not ripping the house to shreds, she’s either down in the vault or burning stuff in the backyard.”

“So, you invited all her little pals here to see if we could cheer her up?”

Codsworth bobs in the air. “I didn’t know what else to do. I just don’t think she needs to be alone. You see what she’s done with alone.”

_Made a mess…_

The Ghoul looks into one of the nearby boxes, finding it full of framed photos –most damaged and warped by time and atomic fire. He can only tell what a few of them are of. Nora's in most of them, as well as the dark-haired man he has always assumed to be Nate. Little baby Shaun. There’s one of a blonde-haired girl holding the infant, looking at the camera with a brow cocked and not a shred of amusement.

He supposes that must be Adelais. He can see a bit of resemblance between her and Nora and figures all women must have been good-looking in their family. They both hold that same pre-war elegance. Fair features –high cheekbones and delicate chins. Lips full and soft. But whereas Nora’s eyes are rounder, blue, and her nose sharp, Adelais’ eyes are angular and steely grey –her nose more button-y.

For half a moment, he wonders what she was like.

That passes, though. His mind turns towards Nora and what can be done. He knows everyone needs time to grieve, and that everyone does it in their own way. Maybe Nora needs to throw out all the reminders of her old life so she can be here in the present –so she can move on.

Hancock pulls a tin of Mentats from an inner pocket in his jacket, popping the lid, then one of the chalky tablets into his mouth. “I’ll keep her company.”

“Thank you, Mayor.” And the bot truly does sound thankful, relieved. “She’s in the back. …Let me know if you need anything.”

The Ghoul tilts is head as he makes towards the backdoor, and in the well-kept yard, he finds Nora and a fire raging. She holds a box in one hand, fingers routinely reaching in to pull out a photo or scrap of paper. She stares at them for a moment, then feeds the flames at her feet. Again and again, each moment stiff and robotic.

He comes to stand beside her, then has to take a few steps back. It’s already sweltering outside, and the fire makes it nigh unbearable.

“Bit hot out for a fire,” he comments.

Nora stops throwing bits of her life away long enough to wipe the back of her hand along her sweat-beaded brow.

“Do you wanna get out of here for a bit? Go on a walk or something?” the Ghoul offers. “We ain’t gotta talk unless you want to, I just don’t want you getting burned or worse.”

She doesn’t say anything for a long moment; no, she returns to the mechanical ruination of her memories. Then suddenly she’s tipping the box forward, spilling out what’s left into the flames. The burning tendrils surge upwards, growing hotter. Nora doesn’t step away until after tossing the box in.

“Yeah,” she says, her voice hoarse. “A walk sounds nice.”

* * *

“I’d almost come to grips with losing Shaun,” Nora says as they walk along the riverbank, eyes on her twisting fingers. “Over the past few months, I accepted he wouldn’t be my baby anymore. He’d be a little boy, and he wouldn’t know who I was. I told myself that was okay, and I wouldn’t push him –I wouldn’t rip him away from the life he had come to know. But it’s been _sixty_ years, John. Not ten like I thought. He’s old and grey, and… he’s nothing like I thought he would be. But I could pretend and be friendly until I got what I needed from him.”

She looses a shuddering breath. “But then Adelais… His Synths killed her. When I confronted him about it, he was so… callous. He said she must have made herself a threat –they’re programmed to attack when threatened. I… I don’t even remember what I said to him. I just know I got angry –in his face– and then I was grabbed from behind and drug off to the room they teleport in and out at. Shaun tossed me back out here, uncaring of anything –of me or his cousin. And it…”

She sighs. “I don’t want to remember any of it anymore. I don’t want to see their faces when I walk into the house.”

“If you’re sure that’s what you wanna do, I won’t stop you,” Hancock says, taking a huff from the Jet inhaler he keeps on his person. The rush is delayed, minor compared to what it used to be. There’s no big burst of energy, but everything outside of him seems slower. He feels like he has more time to concoct his responses. “But do you think you’ll regret it later, burnin’ up their faces –your memories?”

“Does it matter?” Nora’s eyes drift upwards to the sky; she sounds so defeated. “What’s one more regret? I just know it’s making me feel better right now –not having their faces staring at me. Or their old letters and personal effects to get hung up on. …I, I feel so guilty, John. Adelais asked me over and over again to bring her home, but I was… I didn’t want to –I wanted to keep her with the Brotherhood because I knew she would be safe on their airship. I wanted her there with me.”

She closes her eyes, voice trembling. “I didn’t listen to her, and now she’s dead. If I had brought her home, she would be fine, tinkering away just like she likes to do, and I wouldn’t have to figure out a way to tell her little, robot friends that she’s dead and not coming back.”

The Ghoul reaches for Nora’s shoulder, stilling for half a moment before continuing in his motion. He squeezes her shoulder. “You’ll drive yourself crazy thinking like that, sunshine. It’s not your fault. I don’t know that it’s anyone’s fault other than the shit programmers in the Institute.”

“And even then, they wouldn’t have attacked her if they hadn’t been antagonized,” Nora mumbles. “But she was with Elder Maxson when it happened, and he usually shoots Synths and the like on sight.”

“Kinda sounds like his fault, then.”

“His fault. My fault.” She sighs again. “I don’t want to go back to the Brotherhood after this –not for a long while. I… I still believe in them –what they’re doing– but… they failed me. I failed me. I failed Adelais.”

Hancock makes a sour face he’s glad Nora can’t see.

He loves the woman –he really does. She’s become a dear friend and a frequent cameo in some of his drug-induced fantasies, and he respects the hell out of her, but he’ll never understand why she signed on with the Brotherhood. Maybe she likes structure. Maybe being with them reminds her of her late husband. The answer eludes him.

It bothers him sometimes. He knows what the Brotherhood thinks of his kind –of Synths and mutants and Ghouls– and Nora just… goes along with it. He doesn’t know if she believes like they do. He doesn’t think so –she’s friends with him and Nick, and she’s gone to swinging for the both of them before.

But it’s impossible to know what really goes on in someone’s head.

“Just take some time, sunshine,” the ghoulish mayor tells her. “You’re still here, and there’s still an Institute to blow to high hell.”

“Yeah,” she mumbles, squeezing the hand he set upon her shoulder. “I am.”


	10. Functioning Order

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay. Holiday season is particularly terrible for me, but I'm trying to get everything back in order.

_The weather is fair, perhaps perfect; not too warm, not too cold. A gentle breeze causes the red, orange, yellow, and brown leaves of Fall still clinging to their branches to sway, as well as makes a few come fluttering gently to the ground. The sky above is a soft blue with wisps of smoky clouds. Sun bright, but its light is soft due to season, almost far away. Wind chimes tinkle oh, so softly in the background, mixing with faint bird song and the muted, mechanical roar of someone leaf-blowing. The occasional barking of a dog._

_A suburban melody._

_Adelais sits upon the soft comfort of an outdoor chaise made of wicker and cream-coloured padding, observing a well-kept lawn as she takes appreciative sips from a mug of English breakfast tea –heavily milked and sugared._

_For the moment, she feels at peace. As if eternity stretches out before her._

_The scene changes with abruptness, and she’s in a familiar kitchen with Nora and Nate. The two playfully bicker back and forth about something she barely cares to hear. Pancakes are piled high and fluffy on the plate before her, golden brown and buttery. Codsworth passes by, drenching them with maple syrup until she tells him to stop._

_Adelais still tastes the sweetness of the syrup as the kitchen melts into the living room. A doorbell rings. The television set flickers from cartoons to the news._

_She feels several presences behind her as the newscaster tells her that the world –her world– is ending._

_Static._

_Dread prickles throughout her body. She’s being dragged, then she’s running herself. Stumbling. Fear. Noise. People with fuzzed out faces. Everything around her is moving so fast, but she’s going so slowly._

_A voice says to her, “Follow me.” And she does, following robotically after Nate and Nora. Shaun. All their faces are blurry, too._

_She stands on a platform, surrounded by those with no faces. The vista before her is clear and blue, sunny and soft around the edges. No longer is there any bird-song, only deafening silence. Everything is so still around her, and Adelais fears she is stuck –that she may never leave this moment. She isn’t sure she wants to._

_A thundering bang sounds, followed by a flash so bright it’s blinding. Adelais shields her eyes against it, but when she drops her hands, she sees a mushroom cloud blooming in the distance, gargantuan and grey. It roars as its impact races towards them, all atomic fire and destruction. Death. All Adelais can do is stare as the world is engulfed by debris and radiation, her eyes wide as the platform beneath her feet lowers into the earth._

_She feels nothing now. It is dark._

_She blinks and is suddenly standing with Nora, Nate, and Shaun. All but her aunt’s face is blank. Around them are metal tubes. Adelais is suspicious of them. She doesn’t want to go in hers, but Nora, after kissing her on the cheek, insists they get this over with._

_Adelais settles uneasily into the decontamination chamber, feeling as if she is made up of white noise. She’s the calm before the storm. And she’s… she’s so cold, inside and out. Numb almost… She’s tired, too. Tired to her core for some reason. A robotic voice inside her chamber tells her she is secure. Her vitals are normal. The procedure is complete._

_A countdown from five begins._

_Adelais’ breath comes out in white puffs in front of her face, and the tiredness having crept up on her is smothering. The glass she peers out of to see nothing other than the empty tube across from her is frosted around the edges. She has a brief thought: this isn’t a decontamination chamber, it’s a refrigerator. She’s turning into a popsicle and can’t move her limbs or lips to fight against it._

_She can do nothing as her world freezes over entirely._

* * *

Adelais pulls in a ragged, shuddering breath, her eyes popping open as she sits up straight and rigid in her bed. Her hand clenches at her chest, the miserable organ it shields beating too damned fast, and she’s cold to her very core. Everything around her is blurry and black, and she’s scared she’s still in a freezing, metal tube. In a forced slumber so deep there were never any dreams. There was nothing. Everything move forward as she was trapped, standing still. Death was on her heels.

What has she lost this time?

Moments drag into minutes, and Adelais gets a grip on herself, realizing she is no longer in a cryo-pod but in the Institute. It’s dark because there are no windows in her bedroom. She’s cold because she’s terrified and half-reliving old trauma. She’s damp, too, but that’s just nightmare sweat –not accumulated ice crystals melting away.

She’s fine –or as fine as she can be.

_Get a grip, Miyahara._

Pushing away the nightmare based on a memory, Adelais swings her feet over the edge of her single bed. Her feet touching the cold floor tiles has the bright, artificial, white lights flooding on, and though she has to squint against them, she is happy for the light. Her shit brain can see for itself that she’s just in her room –not a cryo-pod.

There are the white walls and grey floors. The dashes of orange. Shelves lined with bits and baubles and pre-war books. A wardrobe. A desk littered with papers and small mechanical bits.

It is clean, sterile, but it doesn’t feel like home. Doesn’t make her feel any better.

Adelais rubs her temples as she stands, feet carrying her towards the adjacent bathroom where she prepares for yet another day in the Institute.

She showers for at least a half hour, washing away the nightmares and truly relishing in the luxurious hot water. She has a list as long as her arm in regards to things wrong with the Institute, but water pressure and temperature are not on it. She can have a steaming bath or shower whenever she wants –she didn't have that out in the Commonwealth. Even her Red Rocket station didn’t always have hot water, and she had equipped it with top-of-the-line accouterments (as top-of-the-line as she could find and manage). It fluctuated; there one day, gone the next. The winter had been particularly awful –the water wouldn’t get hot at all, and she either had to boil her water or wipe herself down with a cold, wet rag if she wanted to be clean.

And if there is one thing she misses about the old-world, it is the cleanliness.

After dressing, she makes her way into the main area of the Director’s quarters –the living space she shares with Shaun. Her cousin sits in the dining area, pulled up close to the table where he flips through a folder as he partakes in “breakfast” –more dehydrated food packets given body with the addition of water.

He bids her good morning as she slips into the chair across from him, sliding her a packet of what will be eggs once she adds water. She returns the sentiment as she rips the packet open with her teeth.

“Healing up well after your last procedure?” he asks of her, the ghost of a smile fading from his lips.

Adelais inclines her head as she stirs water into the packet. “Wonderfully, I think. I feel heavier, of course, but that’s nothing new.” She sets her packet aside and pulls down the collar of her tank top to show him the neat, surgical line tracing over her heart –or what had been her heart.

It has been, at the very least, a month and a half since she started living in the Institute, and in those first few days of exploring, she came across a few, old documents and holotapes that had her brain whirring and working overtime –full of ideas and a want to test them. Especially when she found information pertaining to Kellogg and what had been done to him. She became obsessed with the cybernetics and augmentations done, what one could be with just a few modifications, and the idea of being a cyborg tickled Adelais' fancies.

The Institute has long since moved away from cybernetics, so Shaun was somewhat skeptical of her wanting to continue on with their past research, but then she presented to him models of what she had in mind: improvements upon limb actuators and pain inhibitors, and working prototypes of a highly-durable, mechanical heart and spine. Blueprints for other fabricated organic bits.

She knows he was impressed –he wouldn't have offered her the use of a few retired Synths to experiment on if he hadn't been. She rejected his offer, though, the mere thought making her stomach turn –worse when her brain conjured the grisly image of the retired Synth she used as a replacement. Shot through and discarded. She decided instead that she would be the guinea pig, and after rooting around in the Institute’s archives, she found the means to make that possible.

Before the war, there were these machines called Auto-Docs. They could perform everything from simple physicals to brain surgeries without the help of a human technician. They were incredibly rare, highly valued. She'd only seen one before while touring a medical museum, and it had been one of the earliest models –bulky with a boxed away screen and numerous limb attachments. So, when she stumbled across the blueprints for one of the later models, she almost died from glee. And she got to work immediately, building something that bears a terrible likeness to one of the faulty Pulowski Preservation shelter. But it works. She tested it out by having it implant a pain inhibitor, and after carefully monitoring herself for a week, she installed the limb actuators. Some refining and a few tests later, she attempted the spine replacement. It had the best outcome. Her recovery time was just a few days. Her incisions were cleaner and healed much, much faster. Just a week ago, she replaced her heart, and she's left with nothing but faint, neat scars.

Adelais doesn’t believe she’s ever felt so… strong. Durable. It’s wildly assuring. She’s several pounds heavier for it, but she doesn’t mind in the least.

Shaun gives a hum of approval. “That is wonderful. It looks like months have passed, not a few days... Any pain?”

The tinkerer shakes her head. “Not a bit, and all the tests I performed yesterday say the false-heart is in optimum, working condition. I've been doing some light sparring with the Coursers to see how it responds, and it’s been functioning as well as the old one –better even. I barely broke a sweat, and it was easy to catch my breath... Speaking of which, I'm at a loss with the false-lungs."

The Director nods his approval, then offers. "You should go see Dr. Li. Or maybe take a few steps back from it all for a day or two –come back with fresh eyes. Maybe you'll see something you didn't before."

Adelais hums, spooning a few bites of not-too-terrible “eggs” into her mouth. Both are good ideas, but the latter really has her attention. “Well, I did have something I wanted to do... It's fine if I want to take an excursion out into the Commonwealth, right?" 

Her cousin inclines his head in the affirmative but raises a curious brow at her.

“It’s kind of a… well, it’s a personal quest,” Adelais goes on, taking a quick sip of water. “My parents’ house is in Quincy, and I want to see what’s left of it. There’s also a few items I want to grab from my old workshop and a storage unit.”

“That works out quite well," Shaun admits, “because I was going to ask if you would run an errand or two on the outside for us. ...We've been needing a replacement for... er...”

Adelais waves her hand. He doesn't need to finish the sentence. Nora was useful to the Institute in her way. She could come and go from places with little scrutiny given her work. She was trusted nearly everywhere she went. ...And the blonde hates it, but she knows she can't properly replace Nora in that regard. She's dropping into the Commonwealth as an unknown, and she'll be monitored closely in every settlement she goes to. A lone traveler appearing from the wastes in semi-good repair is suspicious as hell. People will undoubtedly flag her as Institute, as a spy.

She's not. At least, she doesn't consider herself so. She's only with the Institute because she needed a way out of her old life. She doesn't hold their beliefs. She doesn't work on their projects. She's sure the only reason she's tolerated is because of Shaun.

None of that will matter in the Commonwealth. If she was somehow found out, she'd be drawn and quartered in an instant.

She'll have to be careful.

"What's the errand?" she asks.

"A drop-off –seed packets to the Warwick farmstead. It’s not a pressing issue, but something that does need to be done within the next few weeks.”

Adelais nods. “That’s doable.”

Shaun looks pleased as he shuts his folder, tucking it under his arm as he rises. "See the requisition officer if you need anything for your travelers, and do let me know when you're heading out."

The tinkerer salutes him with two fingers, granting him a smile. "Yeah, I'll come say bye."

He almost matches it. She shakes her head at his stiffness as he leaves the room, going back to her "eggs".

* * *

Adelais spends the next hour or so prepping for her trip. She picks up the seed packets from Bioscience, as well as ammunition, extra food packets, and water-purifying tablets from requisitions. She runs a few diagnostics on herself, and once she's satisfied all her parts are in order, she outfits herself.

Instead of a backpack, she has a utility belt and several hidden compartments in her armor: which is a blacked-out vault suit with the numbers stripped off, as well as blacked-out bits of light, but durable, metal reinforcing it. There’s enough space for her food packets, water-purifying tablets, toolkit, and a small first-aid kit. As well as ammunition and a latch for her canteen. It's not a lot, but she doesn’t want to be weighed down. And she wants to look like a wanderer, someone who keeps very little for they are always on the move.

Adelais braids her hair as she boots up the modified gasmask connected to her terminal. She’d taken the time to outfit it with more than just a voice modulator, making it into what is basically a Pip-boy worn on the face. The eye coverings were replaced with durable, tinted displays. She can see the world crystal clear through the lenses, but she can pull up a map before her eyes –messages. It will also give her warnings as to her condition: her radiation level and how her robotic innards are functioning. Anything a standard Pip-boy can do.

She runs a test or two on it, finds it to be in functioning order, and disconnects it from the terminal before affixing it to her face. She tests out the voice modulator, listening as her voice goes from something decidedly feminine into one that could go either way.

She straps her weapons to her person. A .44 caliber on one hip, a fireman’s ax situated on her back, and her gifted knife tucked away in her boot (she covered all the damn B.O.S insignias on it with duct tape). She has other knives hidden here and there –even in the soles of her boots.

Adelais takes only a moment to look at herself in the mirror, and there is a great satisfaction in not being able to recognize the figure in the mirror at all. The armor glosses over any curves. The gasmask completely shields her face, revealing nothing –not even the blonde of her hair under its dark cowl. The weapons make her hold herself differently; the false spine makes her stand straighter, stronger.

She’s not Adelais anymore –not in this armor anyway. She’s a wastelander. Nameless and faceless.

Behind the cover of the gasmask, she smiles in delight.


	11. Astoundingly Awesome

The day is grey and dripping, the boom of thunder growing ever more distant as the summer storm which passed over the Commonwealth earlier in the day moves further north. It leaves the ground sodden and soggy, puddle-strewn; the air smelling of petrichor, sweet and earthy. And with the sun setting, everything goes greyer. Cooler. Yet somehow manages to stay horribly muggy

Adelais wishes for the dry heat of the West as she stands to the east of her old Red Rocket station, camped out on an outcropping of rocks as she watches her workshop shut down for the day. Lupita, the first bot she cobbled together when she arose from Vault 111, locks up the chem-lab for the night before strutting over to oversee a few caravan hands loading up a turret and a few crates filled with either ammo, medicine, or both. Once they've finished, they hand the bot a satchel of caps and take to the road, leaving Lupita to lock up the station.

It’s strange to see her factory of sorts running without her. Not bad, but... there's a weight in her chest. A tightness. She programmed Lupita to take charge of production during her absence, to run everything in the way she likes it ran. But she's not here anymore -her Red Rocket station isn't hers anymore. It appears to belong solely to the robots, and that's lovely to see -lovely to know Nora didn't overhaul everything and replace the robots she thought strange with human workers. But it's... Despite what Adelais feels about her life in Sanctuary now, she knows she lived well -she, at one point, loved it here. She loved tinkering and chem-cooking, bouncing ideas off of Lupita...

She suddenly misses the mechanical amalgamation fiercely. The bot was her closest friend and confidant, and Adelais... well, she abandoned it. She decided to kill herself off without even considering Lupita: a bot she programmed to have the closest approximations it could to human emotion.

Adelais feels like shit, like she should run up to the bot, pull it into a hug, and explain herself. ...Should she? Surely Lupita would keep her secret -Adelais could instruct it to. She could give the bot the proper goodbye it deserves.

The tinkerer debates with herself on what she should do as she watches Lupita make its way into the station, shutting and locking the front door behind it.

She waits until foot traffic from Sanctuary has slowed, until night has fully descended, before making her move.

Picking her way carefully down to her old home, fitting into shadows when she must and avoiding security measures she had set herself months and months ago, Adelais retrieves a spare key she kept tucked away in an old drainpipe. With it in hand, she enters into the dark and cold of the station. The gasmask upon her face, outfitted with a night-vision mode, illuminates a space too clean and orderly. It is very obvious no one has done any sort of living here since she left. The small living area is perfectly made up, throw pillow and blankets placed neatly. The kitchenette is spotless and tidy, no dishes strewn about and no faint scent left over from any cooking. The storage space beneath her kitchenette is emptied of food-stuff, occupied only by a safe.

She enters the code, releasing a relieved breath when it is accepted. She worried Lupita or Nora might have changed it in her absence; but no, it is still a bunch of threes and a single zero.

Adelais removes only a hundred or so caps from the safe, as well as an old keycard. After tucking them away, she shuts the safe softly and creeps into a small, side room she once called her bedroom. It is unchanged. Her small bed against the far wall is made and piled high with the cleanest, comfiest pillows she could find. The shelves on the walls are lined with bits and baubles and mostly intact books. The desk has bits of scrap and barely-legible drawing littering it. And as she takes it in, she notices the set up is close to what she has now at the Institute, albeit dirtier.

Her attention is snagged by a comic book rack and the small collection it holds, some of the issues snug and safe in plastic slips. She scrounged up a few around Sanctuary, others Nora brought to her, and in those first few days outside Vault 111, she took great comfort in reading them. If her mind raced too furiously, she would read one. Lose herself in simple plots and superpowers; outlandishness and science fiction.

Adelais skims her collection, finding her favoured: _Astoundingly Awesome Tales #8: The Man Who Could Stop Time._ She didn't like it for its content; no, literature concerning time travel is often poorly written -too full of paradoxes. But the artwork in this issue is quite fantastic, a pleasure to view, and so she slips it down the front of her armor, careful not to crinkle it.

She leaves the bedroom without taking anything else and comes to stand in the doorway leading into the garage where Lupita rests snug in its charging dock. Her emotions feud with her practicality, her reason. Adelais killed herself. She severed all ties to the Wasteland. The only ones who know she lives are the members of the Institute, and it is a secret they will keep. Half of herself asserts they should keep it this way; it is safer. Not a trace of her continued existence exists outside the Institute's stark whiteness and cleanliness. Why would she jeopardize her anonymity, her freedom, by rousing the bot and revealing herself?

Adelais wouldn't. She can't, and she resolves herself to leave with a whispered farewell to Lupita before slipping outside into the deep darkness of the Commonwealth's night.

* * *

The tinkerer finds shelter for the night in an abandoned cabin just outside of Concord, its only tenants a few feral ghouls which are easy enough to put down with well-placed swings of her ax. She clears out their bodies, barricades the door and window with an old bed frame, and dozes with her back to the walls. A trip wire and mine set up at the door will alert her to any trespassers in the night.

When the morning finds her, she disarms her trap and sets out, picking her way back to the main road that she follows all the way to the Drumlin Diner: a rest stop/trading post that’s seen more and more custom since Sanctuary established itself as a profitable settlement. It’s decently busy for the hour, booths filled with caravan hands grabbing a bite to eat before heading back out on the road and others haggling with the disgruntled woman who owns the locale. Adelais stops only to refill her canteen and purchase two mutfruits.

She eats the mutated fruits as she travels, making towards the main overpass she'll follow all the way down to Quincy: a trip that should take no more than half a day -if she's lucky.

And for the first hour or so of her journey, she is. The roads are safer with the Minutemen on the up-and-up, patrolling and clearing the roads, and so she's able to navigate more rural areas with ease. But once Adelais enters into more urban areas -the cluttered, up-heaved streets of Boston- she is subjected to gunfire and packs of feral dogs; small groups of raiders and a patrolling Supermutants. Most of these obstacles, she manages to circumvent -sneak around of throw them off her trail with a forcefully tossed stone- but she often finds herself having to bring down her ax or fire her pistol. Take a knife to the gut of an enterprising raider.

It’s a little after ten o’clock when she crosses a bridge just pass the trading settlement of Bunker Hill, entering into more cluttered, ruined, city streets. The pop of gunfire is near-constant, and she’s incredibly careful with her movements as she winds her way through, paranoid. There are plenty of hiding places for her but also for those looking to get the drop on those unsuspecting. The shaded alleys and dark corners are menacing; she skirts around them when she can and runs through them when no other option is left to her. 

There comes a sudden hush as she passes by the Old Corner Bookstore: a locale Adelais remembers frequenting two-hundred plus years ago. The quiet doesn’t register at first, but as she debates with herself on whether or not she should risk a visit the quiet sinks in. It is ominous, has her nerves prickling.

No gunshots. No shouts. Even the faint moaning, groaning, and creaking of the ruined skyscrapers seems to have fallen off.

Adelais, having had her pistol in hand since passing through Lexington, moves out of the open street and down a narrow alley where she presses herself into a boarded-up doorway and takes stock of her surroundings.

No one is at her back. Her left is clear. The right appears to be. Looking upwards, to the rooftops… There is movement: a flash of a dirty man passing from rooftop to rooftop. He doesn’t appear to see her; he doesn’t stop. And with her watching so closely, she notices when three more follow after him.

They’re after someone already, setting up an ambush.

Adelais' fingers curl tighter around the grip of her magnum as she stares after the suspected raiders, debating with herself on whether or not she should go after them; help out the poor sap they've set their sights on.

Part of her knows she shouldn’t -she should seize the opportunity to get the hell out of dodge. The noise of the firefight to come is going to attract more than just raiders. Supermutants riddle the nearby skyscrapers, and they're bound to come investigate -as are any ferals. She needs to leave before that happens, put as much distance between herself and this area as she possibly can.

But even though Adelais can be an opportunistic asshole, she doesn’t want to be. She’s spent months being shady as hell and lying to everyone, and it has worn on her.

The tinkerer waits a moment more before slipping out of her hiding spot, and by way of an old, rusted fire escape, she makes her way onto the rooftops intent upon springing upon the raiders before they spring upon their mark. But by the time she sets foot up above, gunshots already ring out from the next street over.

She picks up her pace, sprinting hard across one rooftop before jumping across the short gap between it and another. The limb actuators help to cushion her landing, balance her, and she’s running again. A raider enters her line of sight; her aim isn't the best when running, but she doesn't hesitate when it comes to pulling the trigger. Red blooms. The body drops. Adelais jumps over it and takes down a second raider as they turn to see what happened. She's then sliding behind the cover of a low wall, shielding herself as a third raider fires at her. The bullets chip off brick and mortar, and once they've stopped, she raises her head slightly, spying the raider as they hurry to reload. She takes aim and fires, downing him as well before moving from her cover to go after a fourth, dirtied figure who has kneeled at the roof's edge and takes aim at the street below.

With their attention on the street, Adelais is able to sneak behind them and dispose of them, kicking their body off of the roof to watch it fall to the street. Red spreads on the sidewalk but also streaks across her vision, drawing her eyes to a Ghoul in a red coat and faded tricorner hat. He wields a shotgun and is quite efficient in taking down the five or so raiders occupying the street with him. One receives the butt of his gun in their midsection. The second, a shot to the face. The third, he grabs and jerks around to shield him from a bullet the fourth fires off. Then the fourth gets themselves a face-full of lead when the third's body drops to the ground.

Adelais can’t help but grin. Death is grim, yes, but this Ghoul exudes such an effortless grace in his slaying. Like he knew the way the fight would go before it even began, so every move of his is well choreographed, carefully planned. It is a delight to watch, and she thinks he might not have even needed her help. He’s quick to duck and dodge, moving smoothly around the debris scattering the streets. He fires off his shotgun at the raider who took the butt of his weapon, finishing them off, then turns on the fifth when the foolish thug charges his side. 

And that is when the tinkerer notices movement at the far-end of the street: what looks to be a sixth raider, crouched down behind an old car, pulling a small cylinder from his belt. With his teeth, he rips something free.

_Shit._

“Grenade!” she calls to the Ghoul, eyes tracking the explosive as the raider pulls back and lets it fly.

The Ghoul’s gaze snaps to her -their eyes touch briefly- but then he takes off, diving through an open door barely hanging on its hinges.

The explosion sends dirt and smoke into the air, obscuring the street in a cloud of debris. Adelais strains her eyes, wondering if the Ghoul is alright. Her eyes pick around the slowly-clearing cloud, spying no one -not even the sixth raider. There comes a thunk from beside her, and as she looks to her feet, she finds a grenade rolling towards her.

“Fuck.”

Adelais jumps, knowing she can better survive the fall than she can the explosion, and by some luck, an awning breaks her fall, softening her landing. She manages to land in a crouch, the impact rattling up through her limbs and ringing her teeth but otherwise leaving her unharmed. She's then having to dive away as the Ghoul had, for bullets chink off the pavement close to her boots. She takes cover behind a cement traffic barrier as the dust from the grenade settles, watching the reflective surface of a nearby car as not one -not two- but three raiders hurry their way up the street towards her.

A blast rings out; she watches one raider fall. The two surviving look towards the source, allowing Adelais a chance to rise and fire off a shot for herself, leaving only one figure in mix-matched, sullied gear standing.

Adelais watches his head explode in a mist of red and brain matter.

A hush follows when the body hits the ground, and Adelais pauses for a moment to listen and look, to see if any more raiders pull themselves from the nooks and crannies of ruined Boston. But for the moment, it is still. It is calm. She feels her shoulders droop as she relaxes. She rises fully from the ground, a sharp whistle drawing her gaze to an open doorway where the Ghoul leans against the frame, smiling lazily at her.

The tinkerer gives him a quick up-down, taking in the radiation burns, blacked-out eyes, and revolutionary-era style of dress; the American flagged tied about his waist. He doesn't look like a threat -not with his slim build and just an inch or two in height on her- but she saw him fighting. He holds himself like one more than accompanied with trouble.

“Nice shooting,” he compliments, the barrel of his shotgun pointed towards the ground.

Adelais, lowering her own weapon, graciously tilts her chin. “Pretty decent yourself. I debated for a moment on whether or not you needed any help.”

He chuckles, the sound low and raspy. “Appreciate it.” 

The Ghoul pushes off the doorframe, and she watches him carefully as he approaches. They might have helped one another just now, but that doesn't mean anything. He could still be bat-shit crazy -shank her in the abdomen as soon as shake her hand.

His gait is smooth but lazy. She spies a knife tucked away in his left boot -same as her. Her eyes flick from it, to the shotgun, then to his hand, which he already extends towards her.

The Ghoul suddenly jumps back, the roguish smile he wears slipping off his face entirely.

“Shit. Fuck. Dammit,” the stream of curse words leave his ruined lips in a hiss, and his shotgun rises in an instant, firing off somewhere over Adelais’ shoulder.

She whips around as a resounding, painfully-familiar roar echoes through the air.

It sends a tremor down her spine, sets the scars upon her back to burning –doubly so when she beholds the massive, demon lizard as it shakes off the shotgun blast.

The Ghoul fires again, shouting once to run. Adelais hears his footsteps scrambling away, back towards the storefront.

She hasn’t seen a Deathclaw since the “Concord Incident”. She’d forgotten how big they are, how toothsome and utterly horrific. Forgotten the smell of rotting meat which clings to them and the way their horns and teeth and claws catch the light and absolutely gleam. But she remembers quite keenly how those claws feel burrowing into her back; she remembers the fear she felt as the demon tore down ruined, city streets after her.

And so she stands in awe and terror, frozen by the memory. Her mind barely works; her legs most certainly don't. No, they're turning to jelly beneath her, and her heart would be hammering if she still had one. 

Something strikes the head of the Deathclaw harshly from the side; its sharp face turns in the direction the attack came from. With its eyes briefly off her, Adelais manages to grasp onto a shred of her sense and strength and absolutely haul ass. She hears it roar and feels the tremors in the earth as it gives chase.

_Shit. Damn. Fuck._

She doesn’t know where she’s going, only that she needs to get away as she races down an alley, hoping it too cramped for the Deathclaw (it’s not; the blasted thing slams into the bricks before barreling after her). The girl turns one corner, then another, listening as the beast collides with brick again and roars out its frustration and rage. She can hear its feet pounding against cracked pavement, drawing closer. Her eyes pick around frantically, searching for an escape but finding none. Not an open door or window nor a hanging fire escape for her to scramble up.

Adelais keeps repeating, “Shit. Damn. Fuck,” as she runs, turning corner after corner until a brick wall springs up before her path, trapping her completely.

Behind her, claws scrape against brick and pavement. The smell of decay is enough to make her dizzy, sick to her stomach. She doesn't dare turn to face the creature, knowing she'd go utterly useless once again. She doesn't want its toothy maw to be the last thing she sees... For a moment, Adelais considers shooting herself in the head rather than being torn into. Her pistol is already in hand; she raises it.

A shotgun blast rattles through her, as does a loud, “Up here, ugly!”

Adelais looks up just in time to see the red-coated Ghoul, dangling off a fire escape, fire a round right into the Deathclaw’s face. It goes reeling backwards, roaring up a storm as it shields its face. The Ghoul jumps down onto the ground, kicks in a boarded-up door with two, decisive, harsh kicks, grabs Adelais’ wrist, and pulls her through the portal before slamming the door shut and tipping a filing cabinet over to barricade it.

He pulls Adelais along once more, through what looks like the lobby of an apartment building and up a sagging staircase, then out of a gaping hole in the side of the building. They cross a rickety walkway comprised of old two-by-fours, duck through a window, and once through it, the Ghoul releases her and turns to push the boards out of the window before slamming it shut.

The slam has her jumping; her mind restarting abruptly. Adelais stares at him as he dusts off his hands and straightens his tricorner hat. The motions are so casual one would think he hadn't just risked his life fighting a Deathclaw...

He risked his life fighting a Deathclaw. For her -for a stranger. Her own aunt wouldn't even do that.

“Well, that was exciting,” the Ghoul says dryly, turning to her with a lazy smile.

She’s happy she has her gasmask on so he can’t see how she gapes at him like a fish. “Exciting,” she mumbles. “I… I guess that’s one word for it, yes.”

“You alright? A little shaky?” he asks, that smile falling into a look of mild concern.

"Uh... uh y-yeah. Fine -I'm fine. Wonderful, in fact. I'm not the devil's dinner. Thank you." She breathes out a shaky sigh, hands wanting to run back through her hair but unable to._"Fuck."_

“Don’t mention it. It's fine,” he says, batting away her thanks. "Just take a deep breath. We're safe -safer."

Adelais tries to; she pulls in several to loose slowly as she gets a handle on her nerves. He's quiet while she does so, keeping a respectful distance, and once she's stopped with her soft cursing, he extends his hand to her.

“I believe we were just about to do introductions before big, ugly, and gruesome interrupted us.”

Adelais finds herself laughing slightly, her voice still underscored by a tremor. “We were, weren’t we?” She takes his hand, shaking it warmly. “I’m Moriko.”

It’s a false name she’s had prepared for a while now -she knew she would need one once she decided to venture back out into Boston- but it feels... not quite right as it leaves her lips, strange. She's not Moriko, but she can't be Adelais anymore -not here, at least. Maybe she can go by her real name later down the road -once she's left the Commonwealth behind. 

Or maybe she grows into the name, she becomes a new person, and Adelais Miyahara is left behind.

“Hancock,” says the stranger, “John Hancock.”


End file.
